This special report from the World Peace Foundation documents how Ethiopian and Eritrean belligerents in the war in Tigray have comprehensively dismantled the region’s economy and food system. It provide evidence of their ongoing actions to deprive people of objects and activities indispensable to their survival—actions that amount to international …
Not surprisingly, strong anti-us sentiments were in evidence at the recently-concluded World Summit on Sustainable Development (wssd) at Johannesburg. One reason, of course, was the us refusal to sign the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, despite being the most polluting nation on Earth. Ehrlich A and Ehrlich P best described the sheer …
the polarised and often bitter global debate over genetically modified (gm) food, sparked off by last month's refusal by some nations in southern Africa to accept international donations of gm maize, even cast its shadow on the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg. Though the countries, notably Zimbabwe, eventually …
KALAHANDI . Directed by Goutam Ghosh . Produced by Soudamini Mishra . 45 minutes Pangs of persisting poverty and hunger. Agony of drought-stricken people. Silent sobs of women striving hard to dig out drinking water from the parched riverbed. Despondent villagers forced to migrate due to livelihood crisis. This is …
"My idea of village swaraj is that it is a complete republic... The government of the village will be conducted by a panchayat of five persons annually elected by the adult villagers... this panchayat will be the legislature, judiciary and executive combined... Here there is perfect democracy based on individual …
NI ARK (1984-2001) New Internationalists Publications . Oxford . 2002 In a deluge of suspect information you need the New Internationalist Ark (NI Ark) to keep you afloat. And this special NI Archive covers back issues of the New Internationalist magazine, from January 1984 to December 2001. That's more than …
A compromise has been made to stave off starvation. Although Zambia initially rejected genetically modified (gm) maize in food aid, it has now asked the World Food Programme (wfp) to buy the cheaper gm corn to feed its people. In June Zambian agriculture minister Mundia Sikatana had banned imports of …
the World Food Summit, convened by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (fao) and held in Rome from June 10-13, failed to secure an enhanced commitment to its goal of reducing the number of hungry people from 800 million to 400 million by 2015. What it could just do was to …
There were quite a few adherents to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture at the World Food Summit. The treaty defines plant genetic resources as any genetic material of plant origin of actual or potential value for food and agriculture. India ratified the pact along …
Approximately 80 per cent of all calories consumed in the world come from genomes that are similar to rice. The fact that the rice genome is relatively small, and the availability of modern efficient genetic transformation techniques, have enabled rice scientists to explore this grass in depth. An essential aspect …
the recently concluded World Food Summit at Rome was a sorry affair. The aim was to review the progress made since the food summit in 1996 when the world had jointly resolved to halve the number of malnourished to 400 million by 2015. But the report card is shameful. The …
Africa is reeling under a double whammy. As if the erratic weather pattern that has led to a widespread famine was not enough, corruption and mismanagement has compounded the people's misery. Two seasons of crops have been devastated, first by flood and then by drought. The continent is grappling with …
The festivities of January 1, 2002, signified the sealing of a pact between the Kerala government and the Adivasi Dalit Samara Samithi (agitation council) on October 16, 2001. The agreement guarantees allotment of one to five acres (around .5-2 hectares) of land to all landless tribal families in the state …
North Koreans are dying at a rate that is more than 40 per cent higher than in 1994 when a series of devastating floods and famines hit the country, said Gro Harlem Brundtland, director general of World Health Organisation. She revealed that in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, the annual …
Amid starvation deaths, overflowing granaries and a persistent Supreme Court chasing the government to explain these paradoxes, the recent Union cabinet clearance to the Rs 10,000-crore food for work programme should on face value be good news. But given the fact that the government wants to use the scheme to …
Newspapers come replete with news of starvation deaths while stocks go waste in government storage houses. Food scarcity in India is a more a human-made problem that one brought upon by nature's vagaries. Public distribution system, food and grain prices, gender-related problems and sheer poverty combine to have a debilitating …
tens of millions of children could face starvation in 20 years time if the governments across the world do not focus on irrigation, education and agricultural research for poor countries, according to a new analysis. The analysis was performed by the world's most complex computer model of the global food …
The Supreme Court has directed six drought-prone states to reopen closed public distribution shops. The court's directive was given in response to a lawsuit filed by the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), which cited incidents of starvation deaths despite the storehouses of Food Corporation of India (FCI) overflowing with …
the skeletonised frame of 68-year-old Manglu Bhoi doesn't shiver with the chilly spring breeze on a bright February morning, but with the thought that he has to walk for two kilometres to fetch a bucket of water. A resident of India's poorest district, Balangir, he is one of the million …
