Much of the daylight robbery in the name of Commonwealth Games has been justified in the name of "National Prestige" and "World class aspirations. Whether all these surreptitious measures will eventually deliver the games is an open question? The Commonwealth is a 'friendly' association of those 72 colonies which were once part of the British Empire and rose to free nationhood - some through protracted struggle and others through negotiation. In...

The UPA government is ready to launch its promised flagship scheme to streamline the delivery of programmes for women on March 8, after months of internal quibbling involving the President and the women and child development ministry. But the government has agreed to the launch only after whittling down the financial allocations for the scheme to less than 1 per cent of the amount sought by women and child development...

The agricultural growth package mooted in the Union Budget for 2010-11 seems well conceived but not adequately supported by funding for its key elements. This, surprisingly, is despite the 21.6 per cent increase in the overall Central plan outlay for agriculture and allied sectors, the highest hike in recent years. The underlying objective of the four-pronged strategy outlined in the Budget speech for spurring agricultural growth is, obviously, to address...

Demanding attention to farmers, agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan on Tuesday said increasing income per hectare was as much of a concern as improving yield per hectare. “The National Farmer’s Policy is unique because it shifts focus from the land to its tiller.” Dr. Swaminathan was speaking at a conference here on implementing the Farmer’s Policy, drafted in 2007 by a National Commission with him as chairman. Revisit syllabi Revisit syllabi, he...

IMAGINE THE lowly brinjal you have always known turning into a sci-fi gizmo — with an uncharted potency for good and evil. Imagine a food turned into a pesticide — and you will have a measure of the essential uncertainty around Bt brinjal. When Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced his indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal on February 9, he halted a juggernaut that could have swept India to a point...