Ensuring food security to all is one of India’s top policy agendas today. Given a large mass of poverty in the country, it is not surprising and no one would perhaps disagree with the need to achieve this as soon as possible. But the varied policy instruments that can be used towards achieving this goal draw sharp differences among the stakeholders. What is food security? The World Food Summit of 1996...

-PTI   Global rice production is expected to touch 476 million tonnes in 2011, on the back of improved weather conditions, as the influence of La Nina is expected to neutralise by June, United Nation's body FAO said. The world rice production reached a new record in 2010, at 464 million tonnes (696 million tonnes paddy), up 1.8 per cent from the previous season, Food and Agriculture Organisation said. "Although very preliminary, world...

Agreement may be worked out before closure of conference   India maintained silence on listing of endosufan under the Rotterdam Convention at the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, which opened in Geneva on Monday. The Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade requires the exporting countries of listed chemicals to provide the importing countries with advance information on...

-The Hindu   She will make yet another attempt before monsoon session A meeting convened by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar here on Wednesday failed to break the deadlock over the Women's Reservation Bill. The Bill to set ASIde 33 per cent of the seats in Parliament and State legislatures for women was passed by the Rajya Sabha in March last year, but has been held up in the Lok Sabha amid stiff...

To call Anna Hazare the 21st-century Gandhi, as some have started doing, is pure hyperbole, but many would see a similarity in their methods — in particular, in their resorting to fasts to achieve their objectives. This, however, is erroneous. Indeed, the fact that so many people consider Anna Hazare’s method to be similar to Gandhiji’s only indicates how little contemporary India remembers or understands Gandhiji. Gandhiji undertook 17 fasts in...