Sugar, to mix one’s metaphors, is heading for a perfect storm. And this is being made because of our own policies. By the year-end, retail prices of sugar in Delhi and Mumbai may cross the Rs 40 per kg barrier — an almost 150 per cent increase in less than 15 months. And no, you can’t blame climate change or monsoon failures for this. So, what triggered the sugar crisis? In...

The Genetic Engineering Advisory Committee (GEAC), a regulatory body comprising of scientists which works with the Ministry of Environment and Forest, has finally waved the green flag for commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal in India on 14 October, 2009. The present recommendation of the GEAC has met with opposition from Greenpeace (http://www.greenpeace.org/) and a host of other civil society organizations. However, commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal may take a year...

Villagers in Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh agitate and get their dues under the rural job scheme; but the authorities are not giving up easily Villagers had to fight to get unemployment allowance worth Rs 14 lakh in Sitapur’s villages though this is something they are assured under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Villagers in Misrik and Pisawan blocks in Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh would vouch for the benefit...

In their own manner, Indian Maoists have worked out the rationale of what they are doing. The grisly serial murders they are indulging in are, in the first instance, intended to warn god-fearing men and women in the areas they are entrenched in to behave and not act as police informers. Should their instructions be infringed, retribution would be swift and merciless. The brutal killings, specifically of CPI(M) cadre and...

The new railway tracks announced on social demand but which are economically unviable and may get delayed due to fund crunch may be funded through NREGA. Railways, which is facing a fund crunch and is struggling to check cost escalation, has also asked state governments to pitch in at least 50% of the project cost from their kitty by raising it through a cess or any other means. According to...