-PTI Unfazed by large scale protests over diesel price hike, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday asserted it was a step in the right direction and expressed the hope that economy would rebound in the second half of the current fiscal. "The recent increase in diesel prices is an important step in the right direction," he said while addressing the meeting of the full Planning Commission which was called to approve the...

-IPS News World Water Week recently concluded in Stockholm with a special emphasis on the linkages between water and food security. From the worst drought in 56 years in the United States Midwest, to the Karnataka’s drought in India, to the protracted drought in the Sahel region of West Africa, we have also seen how in our globalised world the nexus between lack of water and food security in one corner of...

-PTI Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said the ground water level in the country is decreasing and there is an urgent need to check this through encouraging micro irrigation. "The ground water table in the country has come down in the last few years and in order to check this we should work with technologies like drip and sprinkler irrigation, which minimises loss of water," Pawar said in his inaugural address at...

Industrialisation of agriculture creates hunger and malnutrition, destroying the food web to which we all belong. Hunger and malnutrition is manmade. It is in the design of the industrial chemical model of agriculture. And just as hunger has been created by design, producing healthy and nutritious food for all can be designed through food democracy. That is what we do in Navdanya. That is what the diverse movements for food sovereignty...

-PTI An uneasy calm prevailed here on Tuesday with police tightening vigil as anti-nuclear protesters continued with their relay fast at Idinthakarai, epicentre of protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear plant, condemning the action against anti-KKNPP activists. Police here said the situation was calm but they are keeping a strict vigil. “Security has been stepped up,” sources said. Sources close to S P Udhayakumar, convener of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, spearheading the protest...