-The Guardian In a village in India's poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no herbicide. Is this one solution to world food shortages? Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-east India and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually...

-The Business Standard Implement it with watershed development schemes to alleviate poverty The United Progressive Alliance government appears to be upbeat regarding the prospects of its flagship scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which provides a universal, self-targeting guarantee of 100 days of employment to every household in all rural districts of India. “MGNREGA has tremendous potential to increase agricultural production, which we have not been able to...

-The Times of India Why isn't aam admi smiling? The question's relevant, since some cheer's apparent in government circles over wholesale price index-based inflation falling to 6.62% in January. Headline inflation, it's said, will drop further by March-end. To common people, the WPI inflation figure's a meaningless number. If WPI inflation's dipped a fourth successive month, food prices have been riding high for far longer. Policymakers periodically recommend release of foodgrains from...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the Bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...

-The Hindu “Unions should press for things like public health, nutrition, in addition to [addressing] issue of secularity” Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Saturday exhorted trade unions to expand their role to address injustice in general, covering aspects like inequalities in income, healthcare, education and nutrition. Speaking at the 90 anniversary celebration of the Reserve Bank Employees Association, he said unions could take their role further as their identity cut across religious sects,...