The following piece was written for the UNIDO’s General Conference that took place in Vienna this month but could not be carried by any of the international papers because of a slight delay, although some feel its contents may not be ideologically palatable to them. Hence it is being carried here for the benefit of our readers. —Editor A highly positive sum game awaits the community of nations if an internationally...

The recent high-pressure tactics to introduce genetically engineered food crops in India are another rude reminder that Western agribusiness companies have a deeprooted strategy to obtain a stranglehold on India’s food and agriculture system. In a review of recent trends titled ‘Food Without Choice’ (The Tribune, November 1) Prof Pushpa M. Bhargava (who was nominated by the Supreme Court in the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee to protect safety concerns), an internationally...

Some of the poor states in the country that were the focus of the big-ticket National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) have actually ended up being discriminated against in the Central allocation as compared to funds released to some of the rich and efficient states that were already high on the basic health parameters. This has been found in a review of NRHM, the UPA government's most ambitious welfare scheme after...

The World Bank today finalized its Access to Information Policy, which makes the Bank a transparency leader among international institutions.  The policy was approved by the Board of Executive Directors on November 17, 2009 and will become effective July 1, 2010. The final text of the Policy paper reflects the comments and requests for clarifications sought by the Board during the November 17 discussion. “With the adoption of a progressive disclosure...

The outcome of the Conference of Parties at Copenhagen is “good” but not “adequate,” R.K. Pachauri, chairperson of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, said on Wednesday. Talking to reporters here, he said the Copenhagen Accord provided a framework for working out a binding agreement, incorporating the details of the specific commitments by all countries, especially the developed nations. But it did not address the extent to which the developed nations...