-The Times of India MUMBAI: India has lost around 20% of its languages in the past five decades, a survey by the Vadodara-based Bhasha Research and Publication Centre has revealed. The country had 1,100 languages in 1961, but nearly 220 of them have disappeared, said Ganesh Devy, writer and lead co-ordinator of the survey called the People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI). The survey was carried out over two years from 2011. "We...
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A misnomer called food security -Charan Singh and Arvind Virmani
-The Indian Express The proposed bill makes false promises. The need is to directly address problems of drinking water availability, sanitation, maternal health and childcare The Food Security Bill (2013, FSB) promulgated recently by an ordinance is expected to be debated in Parliament soon. The intention behind the FSB is noble, to eradicate hunger from the country, but the means adopted need serious reconsideration. FSB, under the targeted public distribution system (TPDS),...
More »Prof. Amartya Sen, co-author of the book 'An Uncertain Glory: India And Its Contradictions' interviewed by Praveen Dass
-The Times of India Amartya Sen is angry, and clearly getting impatient . Having urged Indian policymakers over decades to do more to combat poverty, hunger and illiteracy , the economist is now taking direct aim at what he feels is our continuing apathy as a nation towards the underprivileged. But in his own way - less the firebrand rhetorician and more the gentle but firm academic don that he is....
More »Punjab’s new agro policy will be a drain on hope -Chander Suta Dogra
-The Hindu Groundwater meets three quarters of the State's farming needs The Punjab State Farmers Commission recently published a draft new agriculture policy for the State that envisages substantial crop diversification from paddy and wheat staples that the State has been growing since the sixties. The draft policy, currently being debated in agriculture circles, is the first serious road map to steer Punjab's agriculture towards a new dynamic, necessitated by a sharp...
More »The malnutrition bazaar-Kundan Pandey
-Down to Earth Is India ready to protect itself from the onslaught of food and nutrition industry? India is shouldering a huge burden of malnutrition-in the absence of government figures, a dipstick survey by non-profit HUNGaMA in 2012 suggests that 59 per cent of the country's children could have stunted growth and 42 per cent could be underweight. While the government is still struggling to tackle the problem, the food and nutrition...
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