With an eye on the proposed National Food Security legislation, the government has set up an expert panel for identification of families living Below Poverty Line (BPL) in urban areas. The panel has been asked to submit its report in the next four months. The eight-member panel is headed by former Planning Commission member and economist S R Hashim and also includes Chief Statistician of India Pronab Sen as its...

Nine of 10 mud-eating children are in the last stage of malnutrition. Eight of 10 people are deprived of every national social-security net and live with starvation and hunger. The average life span is 40 In April, the Hindustan Times revealed acute deprivation in the Uttar Pradesh village of Ganne, part of the former constituency of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.   Now, a Supreme Court inquiry team that visited the area...

Thanks to predictions of a good monsoon, Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen has projected a robust growth rate of five per cent from 0.2 per cent in agriculture and allied sectors in 2010-11. From the earlier estimate of -0.2 per cent last year, the growth rate has been revised to 0.2 per cent. Dr. Sen, who is in charge of the farm and food sector in the Commission, said food inflation was...

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on the occasion of completion of one year of the UPA Government in its second term said on Monday that the flagship programmes launched by his government are progressing well. "I will briefly highlight some of the important steps we have taken over the past year and also the pressing challenges that confront the nation,' Dr. Singh said during his opening remarks at the national...

Biodiversity drives sustainable and climate-resilient farming and the biotechnology industry. Everything should be done to spread bio-literacy for an era of bio-happiness in rural and urban India through the conversion of bio-resources into jobs and income.  Biodiversity provides building blocks for sustainable food, health and livelihood security systems. It is the feedstock for the biotechnology industry and a climate-resilient farming system. Given its importance, a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)...