-Live Mint CIC suspends hearings to seek govt’s opinion; RTI activists criticize the move, saying it could lead to delays The Supreme Court said on Thursday that information commissions at the central and state levels should have two-person benches, with one person being a “judicial member” and the other an “expert member”. That prompted the Central Information Commission (CIC) to suspend hearings to enable it to seek the government’s opinion and led to...

-The Hindu The draft law on acquisition strikes a balance between development and justice for those who will be displaced in the process India is a rapidly industrialising economy and society with intense demands for better infrastructure from its people. The last 20 years have seen a great acceleration in this process, with India becoming one of the world’s fastest growing economies. However, for those whose lands were acquired for these purposes...

-IPS News World Water Week recently concluded in Stockholm with a special emphasis on the linkages between water and food security. From the worst drought in 56 years in the United States Midwest, to the Karnataka’s drought in India, to the protracted drought in the Sahel region of West Africa, we have also seen how in our globalised world the nexus between lack of water and food security in one corner of...

Industrialisation of agriculture creates hunger and malnutrition, destroying the food web to which we all belong. Hunger and malnutrition is manmade. It is in the design of the industrial chemical model of agriculture. And just as hunger has been created by design, producing healthy and nutritious food for all can be designed through food democracy. That is what we do in Navdanya. That is what the diverse movements for food sovereignty...

-The Times of India The Syrian Christian who could not speak Gujarati found it difficult to find a paying guest accommodation when he first reached the city of his destiny, Anand. But soon, Verghese Kurien would turn the small Gujarat town into the heart of India's white revolution. In the process, Kurien would also stitch together a cooperative movement of millions of women and farmers into owning a brand which generations...