-Reuters Cotton farmer Ravindra Krishna Patil in Maharashtra should be feeling flush after strong monsoon rains and a good crop, but high costs have cast a pall over his preparations for the festive season. Instead of splashing out on gold jewellery, appliances or maybe even a car during the biggest shopping season of the year, 28-year-old Patil must count his rupees after costs of everything from fuel to labour soared while cotton...

-The Times of India   India's food security situation continues to rank as "alarming" according to the International Food Policy Research Institute'sGlobal Hunger Index, 2011. It ranks 67 of the 81 countries of the world with the worst food security status. This means that there are only 14 countries in the world whose people have a worse nutritional status.  The GHI is composed of three equally weighted indicators - the proportion of the...

-The Economic Times   India ranked way below its South Asian neighbours Pakistan, Sri Lanka and China in the global hunger index 2011 released by the International Food Policy and Research Institute. South Asia fared worse than Sub-Saharan Africa netting a score of 22.6 on the global hunger index, or GHI, the report said.  While, India stood 67th amongst 81 countries, Pakistan ranked 59, China ranked fourth, Vietnam ranked 25 and Sri Lanka...

Lags behind Bangladesh and Pakistan in assessment and updating data While the Centre is projecting a concern for the poor and the hungry through its proposed national Food Security Bill, it has not even updated data on under-nutrition and hunger in the last six years. This has prevented international bodies such as the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) from assessing the improvement, or lack of it, in India in terms of...

-The Business Standard Yes, it will help combat the acute shortage of farm labour, but it goes against the Act’s core principles. Devinder Sharma  Food and agricultural policy analyst The crisis in agriculture has worsened and it is directly proportionate to the spread of MNREGA Isn’t it strange? The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), which was primarily designed as a radical and novel response to combat rural poverty, is actually hitting the very...