Decades after peasants’ networks have advocated for a new legal instrument to protect the rights of small farmers to land, seeds, traditional agricultural knowledge and freedom to determine the prices of their production, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) may decide to start drafting a declaration on peasants’ rights next week. "The idea of an international declaration on peasants' rights comes from our (base) because many small farmers don’t have...
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The dream that failed
-The Economist Nuclear power will not go away, but its role may never be more than marginal, says Oliver Morton THE LIGHTS ARE not going off all over Japan, but the nuclear power plants are. Of the 54 reactors in those plants, with a combined capacity of 47.5 gigawatts (GW, a thousand megawatts), only two are operating today. A good dozen are unlikely ever to reopen: six at Fukushima Dai-ichi, which suffered...
More »Is nuclear power the demon it's made out to be? by Susan Davis
The water used to cool the Rawatbhata reactor was pumped back into Chambal river. Before and during my pregnancy, I drank the tap water supplied to us from the same river. I didn't go even so far as to boil this water. Nothing went wrong. Kudankulam has been in the news and how! Little did I imagine in 2002 that this remote area of southern Tamil Nadu where there are more...
More »A scam in pulses import? CAG estimates Rs 1,200 crore loss on import of subsidised pulses by Tejinder Narang
In December 2011, CAG tabled a well-analysed audit report in Parliament claiming a loss of 1,200 crore, or $250 million, on the import of subsidised pulses through 2006-11 under the supervision of department of consumer affairs (DCA) of the food ministry. The government's intention to introduce such a scheme cannot be faulted: during 2005-08, seven million tonnes of wheat was imported at high prices, chana (chickpeas) values spiked from 21...
More »Bid to revive forests in Jammu and Kashmir by Peerzada Arshad Hamid
ZAVOORA, India (AlertNet) – Amid thousands of tree stumps stretching over almost 60 hectares (150 acres) of bare plateau, there are signs of life. Delicate saplings of kail and deodar conifers are growing between other newly planted deciduous trees. The woodland had been cut down illegally by loggers and encroached upon for farming. But forestry officials here in Shopian district, a two-hour drive south of Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s...
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