In an address to the Berlin Agriculture Ministers meeting last month, World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy said export restrictions are a prime cause of recent surges in global food prices, and countries should find other ways of securing domestic supplies (“WTO chief: Alternatives to food export curbs needed”, Business Standard, January 23). Though export restrictions are an important contributor to rising food prices, they are by no...

The crime branch on Friday filed a chargesheet against Shailesh Pandya in the murder case of RTI activist Amit Jethava. The 400-page chargesheet revealed that Pandya had earlier made a failed attempt also to kill Jethava. The chargesheet consists of statements of 151 Witnesses. It states that Pandya was given a contract of Rs 11 lakhs to eliminate Jethava by Bahadur Wadher and Shiva Solanki. The duo hatched the conspiracy to...

The Union Home Ministry is pressing ahead with pushing the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2005 for consideration and passing in the budget session of Parliament, even though it was summarily rejected by the National Advisory Council, which is currently drafting an entirely new law.Expressing surprise, NAC sources told The Hindu that Chairperson Sonia Gandhi had communicated to the government that the Council was drafting a new Bill,...

While inflation has been hitting people hard across the country, the rate of price rise has been the most in Kerala, Orissa and Meghalaya, as per government data released today.     In all three states, the consumer price index (CPI) overall stood at 108 in January from a base of 100 in 2010, suggesting inflation of 8 per cent. Incidentally, even richer states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Delhi and Punjab reported a...

Members of eight major central trade unions and independent workers'/employees' federations will march to Parliament on February 23 to protest against what they call the “indifferent and don't care attitude” of the Manmohan Singh government to the “steep rise in the prices of essential commodities, rampant violation in implementation of labour laws, plight of unorganised workers, and reckless contractorisation of employees.” The Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), trade union wing...