The 23-year-old criminal trial of the Bhopal gas tragedy will see the verdict delivered on Monday, but survivors fear the “glaring omissions” by prosecuting agency CBI may deny them justice. Several Indian officials of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) will be in court on June 7 as the accused in one of the country’s longest criminal cases. But missing will be all the foreign accused, including the then chairman of the...

World cereal output is expected to rise this year to near-record highs, swelling overall supplies and putting pressure on already weakened prices, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Thursday. The global wheat output is expected to fall for the third consecutive year, but at 676.5 million tonnes, it would still be close to record levels, the UN’s food agency said, revising its earlier forecast for 2010. Overall cereal output is...

India's anxiety over erratic monsoon rains will become more acute as rising incomes and a growing population push up demand for farmed produce faster than supply, turning the nation into a major importer within 5 years. Forecasts of a normal monsoon this year have stirred hopes for smooth supplies and low inflation, reversing setbacks from last year's poor rains. But the country must boost yields if it is to feed...

Many governments in the developing world lack the will to eradicate child labour, says the third ILO global report on the deplorable practice. The effects of the present global economic and financial crisis, rather than its causes, have been the central preoccupation of organisations such as the International Labour Organisation in recent times. The ILO, in particular, has focussed on the impact of the crisis on populations within the least...

‘Beggar type.’ Like most of us, Smita Jacob had never come across that pithy official phrase before. It’s a classification in the records of the police of New Delhi, India’s richest city, used to describe a dead homeless person whose death is too insignificant to investigate. The police are as sensitive as you and I to the cripple on the pavement, the child at the car window. They mean no...