Another food crisis? This time it’s not shortages but prices—a plain failure of responsive policy and execution. Zooming food prices are raising political temperatures yet again. The rumblings, for once, are not merely restricted to the opposition parties, but evident within the ruling coalition as well. Though attacks from across the political spectrum have become a bit subdued of late, the target remains Union agriculture and food minister Sharad Pawar. And...

Dr U Jaikumaran is breathless with excitement over the phone. “The next five days will be hectic and crucial in our war against hunger. We have to transplant rice on 300 acres in just five days.” Dr Jaikumaran, a professor at the Kerala Agriculture University (KAU), has been building a Food Security Army (FSA) – men and women in green uniforms organised into nine regiments and 24 battalions – who are...

Are the world and human society in general ready and willing to take action on critical issues that require a major change in the manner in which we produce and consume goods and services?  The science of climate change is now well established. This is the result of painstaking work of over two decades carried out by thousands of scientists drawn from across the globe to assess every aspect of...

Each night, as temperatures continue to plunge and Delhi shivers through its coldest winter in the last decade, a few more people lose their lives on its streets. The people who succumb to the cold include rickshaw-pullers, balloon-sellers and casual workers, the footloose underclass of dispossessed people who build and service the capital city of the country and yet are forced to sleep under the open sky. They die because...

Pratibha urges “out-of-the-box” thinking on agriculture  Involve agricultural economy more pro-actively in growth process Stress on “environment of security” for optimal attainment of growth President Pratibha Patil’s address to the nation on Monday, on the eve of the 61st Republic Day, reflected the common citizen’s worries on two counts: the unyielding price situation and challenges to internal security. She also touched upon climate change, underlining the use of “energy efficient technologies and...