The global 'farmland grab' in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa has become competitive, with companies from Asia, including India and China, joining it. AN extraordinary new process has been at work in the past few years: the aggressive entry of Indian corporations into the markets for agricultural land in Africa. At one level, this process is simply following the hoary old tradition in global capitalism of firms (often supported...

About 30,000 farmers in Maharashtra are feeling cheated. The soybean seeds they had purchased from the state seed corporation, Mahabeej, failed to germinate this season. About 40,000 hectares (ha) of farms in seven districts have been affected. Mahabeej has 45 per cent share in the soy seed business in the state. The blame game Government officials and the state agriculture department blame the farmers for the crop failure. M T Gondeswar, agriculture...

The flawed Bill on food security has not received the kind of publicity that the Lokpal Bill has, but that does not diminish its significance. “THIS government has divided everything and everyone. There are different cards for different sections of the poor. If my employer, taking pity on me, gives me an old television, I am not entitled to a yellow card [Below Poverty Line card]. My son who is...

State links PDS to UID to plug leakages in food supplies but gaps remain Madhya Pradesh has opted for the technologically most sophisticated—and costliest—method for revamping its public distribution system (PDS). It is one of a handful of states that is trying to ensure that subsidised food reaches the segment it is meant for, the poorest of the population or those below the poverty line (BPL). But the route it has...

-The Hindustan Times   The home ministry has raised concerns that a fresh proposal of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to independently collect biometric details could lead to duplication of effort and lead to wastage of public funds. The Cabinet had earlier mandated the census commissioner to create the national population register (NPR), a biometrics-based identity system. This required the census commissioner to create a data-base of all residents through door-to-door...