-FirstPost.com Giant agricultural corporations are seriously impacting the right to food of women, especially in developing countries like India by increasingly suing farmers for breaching patent laws, a UN expert said. “These big companies are suing farmers because the farmers are using (patented seeds) without the permission (from agricultural corporations) or (are not) buying the particular seeds. This is a very serious issue and millions of dollars the corporations are taking from...

-India Today Farmers along the Yamuna have claimed that Sri Sri's Art of Living Foundation forcibly acquired land from them for an event at a low compensation. New Delhi: This comes not from areas like Beed or Vidarbha where distressed farmers commit suicide every year, but the National Capital Region itself. While a mega-show has been planned for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living (AOL) Foundation event in farmland along the...

-The Hindu We cannot permit gross inequality-linked deprivation to leave its malign signature on the lives of those who are yet to come. As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of the markets and financial speculation, and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution can be found for the world’s problems. Inequality is the root of social ills. —...

-The Indian Express We need to make goat farming organised, tie it to agriculture and animal husbandry. This is an apocryphal story, but it is bizarre enough to be true. Once every four or five years, we have a livestock census. The latest one is the 19th, for 2012. This anecdote is about the 2007 version. In a village in West Bengal, there were 31 geese — 17 male, 14 female. An...

-The Hindu The ruling party is doing its best to establish that being critical of its government is tantamount to being anti-national. It is not just the inconvenient person or collective being intimidated; the Constitution is under attack. “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” — George Orwell The controlled voice of Ravish Kumar on a blackened screen and his stark report on NDTV India on February 19...