Abhijeet Sen, Member, Planning Commission talks about the many contentious issues surrounding the Right to Food Act. Does India have enough grain, is it willing to pledge resources, or is it simply anxious to limit its commitments. In fact, why have a Right to Food at all? Rupashree Nanda: Sir, the many drafts of the ambitious legislation "Right To Food", have been disappointing. The Planning Commission note is almost a let...

Members of La Via Campesina and other groups condemn market-based solutionsHector Rodriguez, who runs an alternative radio station in Cancun called Reptil, decided on a novel way to protest the commercialisation of forestry.As hundreds of people marched to the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez walked up to the posse of Mexican policemen with riot shields and launched into an impassioned plea to help...

WIKILEAKS deserves protection, not threats and attacks. IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win." His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch...

A man, crawling on all fours, is searching for something under a tree on a hot summer’s day. A curious passerby stops and asks: “What are you looking for?” The man replies: “I’ve lost my watch.” The passerby asks: “Are you sure it fell near this tree?” The answer: “It’s cooler looking in the shade”.Governments work something like this. They do what they think is easier to do rather than...

The government on Tuesday introduced in the Lok Sabha a bill aimed at preventing sexual harassment of women at workplace in various forms, including implied or overt promise of preferential treatment or threat or interference in her work through intimidation. The Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010, provides for mandatory setting up an internal committee by a company or any other institute to probe a written...