-Live Mint Incidents at Bhopal and Indore highlight irregularities and ethical violations in some trials In 2004, doctors at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC), established exclusively for treating the victims of the 1984 gas leak, recruited unsuspecting survivors for clinical trials without their knowledge or consent; 14 participants died during the course of the trials. Together with the episode in Indore’s Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital (that Mint reported on 10...

-The Economic Times A new book by Bibek Debroy on Gujarat looks at how this much-talked about state has performed in economic terms. The author argues history, luck and administrative clarity have been the determining factors. There has been a discernible pickup in Gujarat's growth performance since the 10th Plan (2002-07), the five-year Plans being natural periods for breaking up the timeline. It's tempting to argue that there is nothing exceptional in...

-Al Jazeera  Organic farming is the "only way to produce food" without harming the planet and people's health. Reports trying to create doubts about organic agriculture are suddenly flooding the media. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, people are fed up of the corporate assault of toxics and GMOs. Secondly, people are turning to organic agriculture and organic food as a way to end the toxic war against the earth and...

-The Telegraph The human resource development ministry plans to sponsor a certain number of Indian students for PhD and MPhil courses in leading foreign universities every year. It has asked higher education regulator University Grants Commission (UGC) to work out details such as the number of students to be sponsored and the institutions with which the arrangement would be sought. “The focus may be on science and technology,” a ministry source said. The...

Industrialisation of agriculture creates hunger and malnutrition, destroying the food web to which we all belong. Hunger and malnutrition is manmade. It is in the design of the industrial chemical model of agriculture. And just as hunger has been created by design, producing healthy and nutritious food for all can be designed through food democracy. That is what we do in Navdanya. That is what the diverse movements for food sovereignty...