Some time ago, newspapers in Britain carried full-page advertisements from the curiously named British Pig Association. This consortium of pig farmers was clamouring publicly that the supermarket chains were squeezing the farmers dry. Alongside them, Britain’s dairy farmers complained that a supermarket cartel was paring down their prices, while production costs went up and up. These farmers too have powerful lobbies; they are still in business. To this end, Britain, like...

Five States did manage a significant decline in the average number of farm suicides between 2003 and 2010. However, more States have reported increases over the same period. The television story was genuine and sensitive. At least 90 farmers, it said, had committed suicide in two months in Andhra Pradesh. These were cotton growers. Actually, last year, Andhra farmers killed themselves at the rate of 210 each month on average, according...

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee may be right in pushing for FDI in retail because reports have been pouring in, indicating that the economic downturn in India and abroad will worsen in coming weeks. 'I want money,' an agitated Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee reportedly told the Cabinet on Thursday, November 24, when coerced by colleagues from his Congress party for pushing 51 per cent Foreign Direct Investment in retail. The FDI issue is...

An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...

-The Economic Times   What should be the agenda for national renewal? Should we discuss what should be done in individual sectors like agriculture, infrastructure, energy, etc., and plead before the rulers of modern democracy to accept some of our suggestions or should we focus on the decision-making processes itself, which exist in governance today? Who takes decisions in our 'democracy'? Who influences these decisions? Are these processes really democratic? Is lack of...