The number of children dying due to immunization-related complications has more than tripled after the government closed down three public sector vaccine labs in January 2008. The government has no clue about the causes while children continue to die, the latest being that of five infants in Gujarat on Wednesday. Details given by the Union ministry of health and family welfare in reply to an RTI query filed by Dr K...

With 1.8 billion people threatened by absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two-thirds of the world’s population facing potential shortages, countries must better protect and manage forests to ensure the provision of clean water to vulnerable communities, a United Nations-backed forum warned today. “Forests are part of the natural infrastructure of any country and are essential to the water cycle,” said UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Forestry Department Assistant Director...

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar recently alleged that Monsanto, the Union environment ministry’s genetic engineering approval committee (GEAC) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had colluded to start trials of genetically modified maize in Bihar before clearance from the environment ministry and the state government. The charge is significant: Nitish says ICAR’s experimental farms in Bihar did not maintain the stipulated “isolation distance” from normal farmland, meant to...

The National Advisory Council (NAC) has now sketched out the “contours of a national food security bill”. The goal is worthy: “Protecting all children, women and men from hunger and food deprivation.” To some, the bill might appear utopian. The truth is worse. The bill reminds us of John Stuart Mill’s denunciation of a government policy of his day: “What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be...

About 6,348 tons of foodgrain stored in various government outlets across the country were damaged primarily due to storage pest attack and leakages in godowns in 2010-11, a fact which does not go down well for the country's food security. “The foodgrain get damaged due to various reasons such as storage pest attack, leakages in godowns, procurement of poor Quality stocks, during movement of stocks, exposure to rains, floods, etc,” Union...