After announcing food prices had reached record levels last week, the United Nation’s (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is now trying to play down concerns about shortages. The FAO’s representative for Asia and the Pacific region, Hiroyuki Konuma, admitted that food supply and demand were tight but said there were sufficient grain stocks to feed populations. Though certain foods such as sugar, meat, corn and soybeans are selling at a...

India's environment ministry has ordered the demolition of a block of flats in mumbai that has been at the centre of a corruption scandal. It said the Adarsh Society building must be demolished within three months for breaching coastal protection laws. The 31-storey high-rise was originally planned as a six-storey housing project for war widows. But flats were sold to politicians and military officers, allegedly at prices far below the market rate. The block,...

Faced with full demolition, the Adarsh housing society today said it would challenge the “mala fide” order in the high court even as it slammed environment minister Jairam Ramesh for his tearing hurry. “Right from day one, even before the show-cause notice was issued to the society, the minister has been saying the building would be demolished. It is a mala fide order. The minister seemed to be in a tearing...

Twenty-two villages around the proposed site for the 9900mw Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project (JNPP) on Monday decided to boycott all educational institutes in the area for the next two days as a form of protest against the state’s propaganda in favour of the project. The villagers allege that the Ratnagiri district administration is forcing teachers from Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools to promote the JNPP by visiting the home of every student. “The...

The social audit of development works under MGNREGA in Todgarh panchayat, Ajmer district asserted and endorsed the Rs 56 lakh embezzlement found by the district administration in a recent enquiry, whose findings were read out at the social audit gram sabha yesterday. It may be recalled that only recently, panchayat resident Bikam Chand Jain who was seeking information  on MGNREGA and other panchayat works in Todgarh had his legs cut...