-The United Nations Amid economic crises, climatic shocks, and high and volatile food prices in a world of plenty where nearly 870 million people still go hungry, the United Nations today marked World Food Day by highlighting agricultural cooperatives as vital weapon in the war on poverty and hunger. “Owned by their members, they can generate employment, alleviate poverty, and empower poor and marginalized groups in rural areas, especially women, to drive...

-The Hindu Bangalore: Many persons with disabilities are jobless and unable to get or denied their paltry pension Seven-year-old Sadiya lies awake as her parents and siblings, who have just returned from an overnight trip to a dargah, catch up on their sleep. Lying on her back, no taller than an average toddler, she wails when she spots strangers at her door. Sadiya shares the tin-roofed 10 ft by 10 ft space...

-The Hindu Intelligent management of ecosystems can help to turn local economies around and give destitute households a chance to increase their incomes Protecting biodiversity is humanity’s insurance policy against the unprecedented biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation which has occurred in recent decades, undermining the very foundations of life on earth. This is why this week’s 11th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, which India is hosting, is...

-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...

Remember Arjun Sengupta Committee Report? It’s the same report which put paid to government’s shifting poverty estimates by asserting that almost 80% Indian survive on less than Rs 20 per day. Known as the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), the report has gone missing from the public domain. The official website of NCEUS is no more working: http://nceus.gov.in, raising doubts regarding someone, somewhere trying to hide...