In India, people are upset about onions. Expensive cooking oil is causing hoarding in China, a practice banned by the government. Meanwhile, flour and bread are the main source of riots in Algeria and now Jordan. Worries over food prices are gathering pace and triggering alarm among politicians across the world. For there is nothing more likely to bring down a government than ignoring starving citizens, as Marie Antoinette found to...

World nuclear agricultural scientists said that nuclear induced mutations in a number of crop species in several countries have contributed significantly to food security and agricultural economy. “Induced mutations have contributed significantly to the world agriculture by producing mutants with enhanced production and productivity in a large number of crop species,” scientists from Asia-Pacific countries said at the international conference on ‘Isotope technologies and applications—New Horizons’ which concluded here on Wednesday. A...

Appreciating the country's commitment towards universalising health coverage for the people, health economist Robert Yates has said the country needs to increase its public spending on health either by health insurance schemes or taxation.“The entire exercise of constituting a high-level expert group on universal health coverage that India has undertaken has been done at an appropriate time when the economy is growing and the country is getting wealthier as a...

For the Human Rights Day in 2010 the Asian Human Rights Commission presents the reports on the state of human rights in eleven countries in Asia; Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea and Sri Lanka. The general picture that emerges is one of the failures of the states to carry out their obligations for the protection of people.Serious defects are evident in the area...

The Unique Identification Authority of India is already seeing a massive explosion for bank accounts among people enrolling for Aadhaar or the unique IDs issued by the authority, its chairman Nandan Nilekani said. Some 80% of people enrolling for the IDs want bank accounts, he said at a lecture here organised by the Indian Institute of Banking & Finance on Thursday. “If we are able to provide every such person with...