-The Hindu Business Line   The uncertainty over adopting agricultural biotechnology is in no one's interest, given the high food inflation and dependence on imports. With food inflation climbing once again above 10 per cent, it has become even more urgent for the government to provide a a clear mandate in terms of policy support, the technology options and requisite investment for domestic agriculture. Output growth, especially of proteins, has been decisively trailing...

Degraded soils, depleting groundwater, and chemical pesticides are playing havoc, placing agriculture in terrible distress. I haven’t forgotten that night. Sitting with a group of farmers in a village in Ludhiana district in Punjab, at the height of the Green Revolution, a farmer showed me a bag of fertiliser that he brought from the market. “Why are you showing me this bag”, I asked. “Wait”, he said, and began to open the...

I never dreamed I’d ever wave the flag for Indian pharmaceutical companies. But some years ago, I discovered that India provides essential drugs to most of the world’s economically deprived nations. Many of the poorest people in India and Africa could not afford basic drugs if it were not for Indian drug companies. Astonishingly, India is known as the ‘pharmacy to the developing world’ and is something of a hero in...

Studies by the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Academic Forum on food security issues in the three countries suggest that providing food access works best when backed by cash transfers. A paper on food security brought out by the UNDP’s Brasilia-based International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), under the Forum, shows that despite the great strides in food production made by India people in this country are just not eating enough. Citing indices...

Karnataka finds large-scale violations of state laws in its three districts. Karnataka has imposed Rs 140 crore in penalties on 13 iron ore mining companies in Tumkur for encroaching on government land and dumping mineral waste, thereby causing damage to the Environment. “We have conducted a suo motu joint survey with the departments of mines and geology, forest and revenue in Tumkur district and found that 13 iron ore mining companies have...