The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) recently in New Delhi, India gathered more than 900 participants for an international conference to examine ways that agriculture can enhance the health and nutritional status of poor people in developing worlds. Scholars, Politicians and activists during the conference tried to exploit the nexus between agriculture, nutrition and health. Most people would say that agriculture is for growing food, and on one level, they are...

An estimated 75 per cent of the world’s coral reefs are threatened by local human activity, including over-fishing, coastal development and pollution, and global pressures such as climate change, warming seas and rising ocean acidification, according to a United Nations-backed report unveiled today. “Reefs at Risk Revisited,” launched today in Washington and London, says that if the threats to the reefs are not dealt with, more than 90 per cent of...

In a bid to check wasteful fuel and fertiliser subsidy and reach it to the intended beneficiaries , the government has set up a task force to suggest a suitable mechanism of direct transfer of subsidy to the consumers. The task force will be headed by Nandan Nilekani , Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI )) and has been asked to submit an interim report within four months....

The world economy may have turned around from one of the worst economic recessions that left it scarred in 2009 but things still look far from being radiant as global unemployment remains at a record high for the third consecutive year. If Global Employment Trends 2011, published by International Labour Organisation, is anything to go by, then low job creation remains a major stumbling block in the global Economic Recovery....

South Asian countries, led by India, registered a rapid economic growth in 2010 and their unemployment rates dipped marginally from the previous year, says the latest annual Global Employment Trends (GET) report of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Globally, however, it was a bad year for jobs for the third successive year. The annual employment trends survey points to a highly differentiated recovery in labour markets, with persistently high levels of...