-The Telegraph New Delhi: Swathes of eastern India resembled a gigantic overflowing bucket for parts of this week, with several areas flooded though the monsoon rainfall in the region till September was a staggering 28 per cent below average. Twelve of the region's 15 large river-fed reservoirs were brimming with water on Thursday night. Water levels in three of Jharkhand's five large reservoirs were above the full capacity although the operators, facing the...

-Down to Earth People prefer to eat less nutritious food than go hungry, says FAO GLOBAL CHRONIC hunger has declined significantly despite sharp increases in the prices of primary food products since 2008. Price hikes have limited effect on consumers, states Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in the report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World. According to FAO, chronic hunger is when a person does not regularly get enough food to...

-Outlook New Delhi: To ensure success of its new food laws, government today allowed construction of intermediary godowns under employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA and has allocated Rs 450 crore for creating 15 lakh tonne of storage capacity across the country by March-end. The decision has been taken in view of slow progress in the construction of intermediary godowns by state governments at a time when the government is in a hurry to...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Much work remains to be done if the new Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act has to mark a meaningful shift for India's adivasi communities. Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) is a multimedia journalist and researcher, and currently with the Publics and Policies program at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. Among the worst excesses committed in India's six decade-old democracy, the forcible displacment...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: There is some good news for homemakers. Oil marketing companies have introduced a new 'star rating' system for cooking gas dealers, which will ensure that LPG cylinders are refilled within a stipulated period of time. A dealer failing to provide refills on time risks losing his rating and even his licence if the delivery is not made in eight days. In the most-privileged category are the dealers...