Global fertiliser prices have started to hot up once again, in anticipation of tight supplies in 2010-11 and some significant mergers and acquisitions, which could increase the import bill for India and also make key soil nutrients expensive. In just the latter half of July, prices of key phosphatic fertilisers, urea, DAP, phosphate and potash have shot up in a marked manner. Between July 16 and July 29, phosphate prices...

Counting the “invisible” children of Mother India.  While the current focus of political debate is on ‘caste and census,' there is another important aspect that deserves attention. This concerns disability. For decades after our independence, there was no effort to actually count how many of us have any disability. There were estimates- informed or otherwise- but no factual figures. All our government's plans and budgets, rules and regulations, proclamations and posturing...

The Supreme Court on May 7 ruled that natural resources were national assets that belonged to the people and were ideally exploited by public sector undertakings. This obviously implies that local communities, including tribals, living on mineralised land, enjoy entitlements but not prescriptive ownership rights to such national assets. This is an important reiterative clarification defining mineral rights in Fifth Schedule areas that are currently in contention. Whether PSUs should...

The Right to Food Campaign on Tuesday expressed its disappointment with the “narrow manner'' in which the proposed food security Bill was being formulated and sought a public debate on the subject. They resolved to intensify their efforts to secure a legal right to food and nutrition for all. At a meeting with Union Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, a delegation of activists said the proposal to provide 25 kg...

A PIL in the Supreme Court on Monday made a strong pitch for utilising the elaborate ‘Census 2011’ mechanism to end the 80 long years of Speculation about the exact population of other backward classes (OBC), which had been the basis for 27% reservation in jobs and educational institutions. PIL petitioner Kishore Govind Kanhere through counsel D K Garg said that while the Mandal Commission estimated that OBCs constituted 52%...