In a year of sparse rains and spiralling food prices, with hundreds of districts being officially declared as drought-hit, a rally by activists in the capital demands a Food Entitlements Act.  Perhaps the most vocal demands at the rally were those aimed at a complete revamp of the Public Distribution System (PDS), starting with universal — instead of targeted — coverage. Over 5,000 grassroots activists, agricultural workers, farmers, lawyers, doctors and...

Thirty years after an international treaty banning discrimination against women came into force, women and girls are still suffering from the scourge, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned today. “Violence against women and girls is found in all countries,” he told a session of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) marking the three decades of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). “The results...

It has been a bumpy ride, with developed countries failing to make definite commitments and India hinting at a shift of stance. THE last leg of the climate change talks held in Barcelona, Spain, on November 2-6 in the run-up to the all-important 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen in December did not result in any dramatic development...

The Indian economy is picking up and should be able to expand at eight to nine per cent. It is high time that the government initiates a universal public distribution system covering at least the essential commodities. Incomes of the rich will go up and India will be a major player in the world when it revives. But the bulk of the population, about 70 per cent, will remain poor with...

The bizarre politics behind the UPA's withdrawal of the controversial sugarcane price order. It was the quickest retreat that any government has made in recent times. It took just a day’s protest outside Parliament before the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government decided to withdraw the controversial provisions of a notification it had issued last month on the payment of fair and remunerative prices to sugarcane farmers. You may describe it as an...