The United Nations has asked the international community to invest more in surveillance and control measures to check animal diseases. It also said the increased mobility of viruses and their carriers across countries is emerging as a new global threat.
The joint report by UN Economic Commission for Europe and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation released on Tuesday said that consumption, production and trade of forest products reached record highs in 2006, with a slight downturn registered in 2007. That decline accelerated in 2008, marking the sharpest drop since the first oil shock of 1973, and continued into the first half of this year, it said.
China granted bio-safety certificates in 2009 to two pest-resistant GM rice varieties and one type of corn, the first country to allow field trials of GM staple foods.
India's exports to Iran have been falling over the last one year, amid decline in rupee reserves of the West Asian economy. Going ahead, the possibility of augmenting exports to Iran may not be easy for India, considering the geopolitical tensions - Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts - and the West Asian country's support for Russia and Hamas, people aware of the matter said. Exports to Iran saw a downward spiral since November last year.
Increased investment in forestry could provide jobs in areas such as forest management and agro-forestry, improved management of forest fires, development and management of tracking trails and recreation sites in forests, expansion of urban green spaces, restoration of degraded forests and planting new ones. Such activities could be tailored to local circumstances like the availability of labour, skill levels among population and social, economic and ecological conditions.
The National Security Strategy document should flag all major issues concerning security strategy and provide guidelines to concerned departments to work out suitable action plans. Since the global and regional geopolitical canvas is dynamic, the NSS document should be deliberated at length before formulation and should be reviewed periodically, recommends Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Several states declared a holiday for schools, while government offices, other establishments and public sector banks remained closed for half a day.
The latest estimates of global hunger, released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), have projected the number of people going hungry every day to swell to the historic high of 1.02 billion in 2009. Almost all of them, barring a small fraction, will be in the developing countries.
'The slaughter and handling of infected poultry poses the greatest risks,' says FAO official Dr Samuel Jutzi.
According to the WHO, Himalayan glaciers are shrinking due to global warming at the rate of 10 to 15 meters per year, which would affect the water supply in India. River Ganga is expected to lose two-third of its July to September flow resulting in change in the productivity of arable land. These changes will in turn affect one-third of India's irrigated land. Water shortage will affect more than 500 million people, it said.
Temperatures in 17 locations breached 48 degrees Celsius on Monday, with the relentless heat affecting health and livelihoods across large parts of northwestern and central India.
However, India's chances of benefiting from the soaring rates are low following the strengthening of rupee against dollar.
'Had they agreed to our demands that we raised two years ago, we would have never started our agitation again.'
UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has created a new Internet portal that provides access to a large variety of information and online training materials related to rural finance.
Bhujbal, who has strongly opposed the demand to include the Marathas in the other backward classes category for quota benefits, said a new social system is taking shape in Maharashtra which is different from the order envisaged by prominent social reformers.
As the kharif season is setting in, India is scrambling to source fertilisers from the international market. It is set to sign long-term contracts - especially with Morocco and Latin American countries - to ensure steady flow of supplies. "We have to source fertilisers wherever it is available because crops have to be secured.
Reacting sharply to the Global Hunger Report 2021, the Women and Child Development Ministry said it is 'shocking' to find that it has lowered the rank of India on the basis of FAO estimate on proportion of undernourished population which is found to be 'devoid of ground reality and facts, and suffers from serious methodological issues'.
States have been told to prepare in advance to counter any impact of an adverse southwest monsoon.
Inflation has reappeared as a global issue in both advanced and emerging economies and India needs to be wary of "imported inflation", especially due to high oil prices, according to the Economic Survey 2021-22 released on Monday. "Inflation has reappeared as a global issue in both advanced and emerging economies. "India's Consumer Price Index inflation stood at 5.6 per cent YoY in December 2021 which is within the targeted tolerance band," the survey report presented in the Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman noted.
The US has come up with a new WTO proposal to find a permanent solution to food stockpiling.
Modi emphasised on deeper India-Africa partnership on clean energy.
All civilian drone operations will be restricted only during day time and flying will be restricted within visual line of sight which usually would be 450 metres, the regulation says.
Sacked Rajasthan minister Rajendra Gudha had claimed that the red diary which he had secured from the residence of Congress leader Dharmendra Rathore during an income tax raid in July 2020 on the directions of the chief minister had details of Gehlot's financial transactions.
Senior officials, including those from a central team, were present during the night-long operation and a close vigil is being maintained on further movement of locusts, Katiyar said. Two fire brigade vehicles loaded with insecticide had been deployed in all four Jhansi tehsils besides six vehicles were kept ready at the district headquarter. Ten municipal employees with two insecticide spraying machines were posted in every block.
A 51-year-old woman member of an NGO from the city was among five Indians on board the Malaysian airliner that is presumed to have crashed into sea off Vietnamese coast and her family is shattered by the news.
Now we need to fight back to reclaim our food and our habits. The only way to do so is to rediscover food as pleasure and be thrilled, not just by its smells and tastes, but also by the knowledge it embodies, says Sunita Narain.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the government will soon take a decision on revising the minimum age of marriage for girls after it receives the report from the committee set up for the purpose.
Ambassador Islam A'Isi' Siddiqui -- who recently resigned from his position as chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the United States trade representative -- has joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies as senior adviser on Global Food Security.
'Everybody was ready to agree with the government if the process to acquire land was a judicious one. All of us want industrialisation and development of the country.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced the adoption of the New Delhi Leaders Declaration, a significant victory for India's G20 presidency that came amid increasing tensions and divergent views over the Ukraine conflict.
India is home to the highest number of hungry people in the world.
WTO's new director has said that the issue needs to be addressed in a positive manner.
Get more people working, get more people working in modern manufacturing and services in our cities, and get people working better and longer, suggests Naushad Forbes, past president, CII.
'Aquaponics can effectively cushion the impact of a calamity like COVID.'
As hard bargains continue for the next four days at the picturesque tourist resort of Indonesia, the ministers., including from the influential developed countries will try and reach agreements on providing windows to the developing nations for their food security programmes and a pact to free the global trade from the procedural hassles at the customs.
Sisi will be the first Egyptian President and the fifth leader from the Middle-East to grace the Republic Day celebrations as the chief guest. He is scheduled to arrive in India on January 24.
Even as the bilateral relationship between the two neighbouring countries remains hostile, there is growing coordination between India and Pakistan on one multilateral forum - the World Trade Organization (WTO). Both countries have made two joint submissions at the WTO as co-sponsors in the past two months. In June, Pakistan joined India, Cuba, and 44 African countries, seeking sufficient flexibility in intellectual property rights for developing countries to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
