FAO has warned that 2011 may witness a global food crisis. Proactive action is needed to meet the challenge of price volatility, chronic hunger, agrarian despair and climate change. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has alerted developing countries about possible steep rises in food prices during 2011, if steps are not taken immediately to increase significantly the production of major food crops. According to FAO, “with...

With the BRT Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka going to get a tiger reserve status, the Soligas living there face imminent eviction.NEVER before have the tigers of the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary burned so bright, either in popular imagination or in administrative priority. With the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests approving “in principle” the status of a tiger reserve for the BRT sanctuary, the endangered cat has taken...

The rally members will highlight farmers' insecuritiesKisan Swaraj Yatra (rally for farmers' sovereignty), a conglomeration of farmers' organisations, consumers and civil society groups, is to make a presentation on the agriculture crisis to the National Advisory Council (NAC). They seek a Farmers' Income Commission and a social security legislation for farmers.Representatives of the Yatra, who met NAC chairperson Sonia Gandhi here on Saturday to highlight the income insecurity of farmers,...

The Communist Party of India on Wednesday asked the Centre to take into account public demonstrations in Maharashtra against the setting up of nuclear power plants there and raised environmental issues connected with the Jaitapur project.It urged the government to make public the contract signed between French and Indian nuclear power companies.Demanding that the government review the environmental clearance to the Jaitapur plant, the CPI also flagged issues of public...

A death threat to a historic 13-year-old international treaty on climate change that surfaced last year appears to have intensified and may stall progress at the UN climate change talks here in this scenic Mexican city. Several industrialised countries are opposing the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty that had set legally binding targets only on industrialised countries for the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases up to the...