-The Times of India KOLKATA: The blaze at a Bhubaneshwar hospital on Monday, in which 20 people were killed, has revived the tragic memory of the 2011 devastating fire at AMRI hospital that killed 91 patients but hundreds of Kolkata health facilities are apparently yet to learn a lesson. In spite of heightened vigilance and stricter implementation of prevention norms by fire services, especially after the AMRI disaster, government facilities and scores...

-AFP Rome: Climate change could sink up to 122 million more people into extreme poverty by 2030, mostly in South Asia and Africa, where small farmers would see their output plummet, the UN warned Monday. In an annual report, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) warned that a worst-case scenario involving high-impact climate change would pound the communities that rely on agriculture for their livelihood. It called for a “broad-based transformation of...

-TheWire.in Each time a small farmer migrates to an urban area, it means one food producer less and one food consumer more. Rome: Now that world attention is focused on the fast growing process of urbanisation, with two in three people estimated to be living in towns and cities by the year 2030, an old “equation” jumps rapidly to mind: each time a small farmer migrates to an urban area, it equals...

-Livemint.com Spoilage and pilferage are not something the country can afford given its low ranking in the hunger index The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently approved a proposal to restructure around Rs30,000 crore of food credit given to Punjab state agencies, allowing for the conversion of cash credit into a 20-year loan at a lower interest rate. The central bank also sanctioned a cash credit limit of Rs26,000 crore for this...

-The Indian Express The opposition’s main contention is that the GM mustard hybrid incorporates three alien genes — barnase, barstar and bar — rendering it inherently unsafe for human and animal health. Fifty years ago, Union Minister for Food and Agriculture Chidambaram Subramaniam took the decision to import 18,000 tonnes of seeds of Lerma Rojo 64A and Sonora 64 wheat from Mexico. The seeds arrived just in time for their planting in...