What is our national aim? To my mind, our national aim must be to make India a highly prosperous country for its citizens, and for that it is necessary to have a high degree of industrialization.  Even setting up and running a single primary school requires a lot of money, e.g. for buying land, erecting the school building and providing for the recurrent expenditure for salaries of teachers, staff, etc. We...

-The Hindu   ‘It has become imperative in view of climate change' Bio-fortified varieties of staple food grains, such as Vitamin-A-enriched ‘Golden Rice', or iron-enriched wheat, could improve the nutritional status of the world's poor, P. Pushpangadan, Director General, Amity Institute for Herbal and Biotech Products Development, said here on Thursday. Presenting a paper on the “Recent advances of agricultural biotechnology in the light of climate change” at the 81st annual session of the...

-AP   As delegates gather in South Africa to plot the next big push against climate change, Western governments are saying it’s time to move beyond traditional distinctions between industrial and developing countries and get China and other growing economies to accept legally binding curbs on greenhouse gases. It will be a central theme for the 20,000 national officials, lobbyists, scientists and advocates gathering under U.N. auspices in the coastal city of Durban...

-IBNS   A group of about 35 women economists from different countries of Europe, UK, US, Australia and India, have written an open letter to Prime Ministers and Presidents of South Asian nations, including India, which are facing acute sanitation crisis. From India, Jayati Ghosh, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Bina Agarwal, Director, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University and Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Chairperson Board of Governors, Indian...

An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...