Policymakers have repeatedly said that commodity futures help farmers hedge their risks. But data from Forward Markets Commission (FMC), the regulator for the business worth Rs 106 lakh crore during April-October, paints a different picture. The share of agricultural trade is just a tad over 10% and within this, food products such as soya oil and chana accounted for less than 7% of the total value. Of course, the government itself...

-The Hindu   “One is my brother and the other is not is the thinking of a narrow-minded person. For those who are broad-minded, liberals, or noble people, the entire world is one big family.” This translation from the Maha Upanishad is part of the vision statement of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), established in 1952 and held annually in Goa. Unfortunately, the IFFI directorate seemed to have momentarily lost...

Indian athletes are threatening to boycott next summer's London Olympics in an extraordinary stand-off with the head of the 2012 Games, Lord Coe, over his controversial sponsorship deal with a chemical company. Lord Coe is under personal attack for signing the deal with Dow Chemical – under fire in India for its ownership of Union Carbide, whose Indian subsidiary was responsible for the Bhopal industrial disaster, one of the world's worst,...

-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...

The top rung Maoist leadership has every reason to be worried now as intelligence agencies in different Left Wing Extremism affected States have been striking Gold in either arresting or killing the top leadership. The Maoist movement faced a series of setbacks in 2011 as the security forces managed to arrest four Central Committee members earlier and the fifth blow to the rebel movement was dealt in the killing of Kishenji,...