-The Telegraph   Wal-Mart Stores Inc — the $446 billion retail behemoth — will be able to open stores in 22 cities across the country after the government notified a press note tonight permitting foreign direct investment up to 51 per cent in multi-brand retailing operations. The press note — which contained clauses that were not spelt out in the controversial press release issued last Friday after the cabinet formally cleared the proposal...

-IPS News UXBRIDGE, Canada- Growing water shortages in many countries are a major threat to global security and development and should be a top priority at the U.N. Security Council, a panel of experts said in a new report. However, that report ignores the biggest threat to water security: neoliberal policies of the free market economic system laying waste to the natural world and turning water into a commodity, activists counter. China...

-The Indian Express Wage growth in agriculture outpacing that in industry is a bad sign for the economy Against a 63 per cent rise in industrial wages in a 10-year period, agricultural wages in the harvesting season have risen by 117 per cent, according to data released by the agriculture ministry this week. The difference in the rise in wages in the two sectors, from comparable bases, is not a statistical artefact....

Industrialisation of agriculture creates hunger and malnutrition, destroying the food web to which we all belong. Hunger and malnutrition is manmade. It is in the design of the industrial chemical model of agriculture. And just as hunger has been created by design, producing healthy and nutritious food for all can be designed through food democracy. That is what we do in Navdanya. That is what the diverse movements for food sovereignty...

-The Times of India The parliamentary committee report on genetically modified (GM) organisms is an attempt to give a quiet burial to biotechnology in India. On behalf of the farmers of India, let me say that this report totally fails to reflect farmers' aspirations, and distorts the scientific significance of biotechnology - including genetic engineering - for the national economy. Instead, it echoes persistent canards by some environmental NGOs. Indian farming suffers...