-FAO Per capita vegetable production in Asia and the Pacific has increased some 25 percent over the last decade. Yet, while Asian countries produce more than three-quarters of the world's vegetables, they and other producers worldwide will need to dramatically increase their vegetable production by 47 percent to meet the nutritional needs of a growing population which would exceed nine billion by 2050, FAO warned today. According to a UN report, with...

-DailyMail.Co.Uk Millions of domestic workers in Indian homes are a part of an informal and "invisible" workforce due to absence of a specific legislation meant for their protection, the International Labour Organisation said on Wednesday. The number of maids has gone up by nearly 70 per cent from 2001 to 2010 with an estimated 10 million maids and nannies in India, the ILO says. According to the National Sample Survey (NSS) 2004-05, there...

-The Hindu With the era of cheap, bountiful water having been replaced by increasing supply-and-quality constraints, many international investors are beginning to view water as the new oil There is a popular, tongue-in-cheek saying in America - attributed to the writer Mark Twain, who lived through the early phase of the California Water Wars - that "whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over." It highlights the consequences, even if...

-The Hindu Increased rebel activity made it impossible for anyone to commute outside Jagargunda unless they left permanently, as the original inhabitants and the new entrants were marked as Salwa Judum supporters, and overtly boycotted by the Maoist-controlled villages surrounding the enclave. In Jagargunda, a large village in south Chhattisgarh, the villagers have been waiting for their winter rations for more than two months. Ordinarily, this would not be news but Jagargunda...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: Asian countries have failed to end hunger despite economic growth, says agriculturist M S Swaminathan who is known as the 'Father of the Green Revolution in India.' "Livelihood security and food security depend on agriculture. We have not achieved this despite a spectacular economic and technological growth," Swaminathan said while speaking at the 'Phenotyping for Agriculture Sustainability' conference in Chennai on Monday. Referring to the Food Security Bill...