The world’s rich countries boosted government support for agriculture in 2009, according to a report that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released last week. The report, “Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries: At a Glance 2010,” is part of the OECD’s annual effort to quantify and assess the support that its 31 developed country members provide to their agricultural producers. The OECD found that the Producer Support Estimate (PSE)...

The proposed food security law is expected to kick in by next April for a year in one-fourth — or 200 — of the country’s poorest districts or blocks, depending on whichever is administratively tenable. The proposal — agreed upon by the National Advisory Council (NAC) — is tactically aimed at pleasing food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar as well as others in the government, Planning Commission and the advisory panel...

The United Nations labour agency is calling for urgent action to tackle the crisis of youth unemployment, which has increased significantly in the wake of the global economic slowdown and has repercussions for the economy as well as social cohesion. Young people – those aged 15 to 24 – account for over 22 per cent of the increase in the number of unemployed since the beginning of 2007 and is...

AS CONCERN for the ecosystem runs high all across the world, a small, mountainous state in India’s northeast — Sikkim, has taken a step ahead and declared to go completely organic by the year 2015. What this means is the total phasing out of chemical inputs from agriculture. Sikkim has long been an ecologically conscious state with initiatives such as a comprehensive ban on plastic, bio-medical and chemical waste in...

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has asked the schools to scrap the entrance tests for admissions The government’s special schools have discovered that their selection process is in direct violation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, which stipulates that entrance tests are illegal up to class VIII. The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs), a special group of 594 schools across India, have conducted two rounds of “selection tests” to...