The soaring food prices that have triggered global political and economic turmoil over the past year have finally shown the first tentative signs of stabilising. The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation food price index, considered the best measure of global food inflation, saw its first decline in 15 months in April, as wheat, dairy, sugar and soyabean prices fell.
Wipro, the $5 billion company with interests in IT services, consumer care, lighting and furniture, is entering a new set of businesses which will enable the company to leverage its growth on the clean energy and agriculture sectors. The company is readying a plan to include alternate energy, water treatment, food and agriculture businesses under its infrastructure business - Wipro Infrastructure Engineering Limited.
Realism comes with a hefty price tag. Iraq was supposed to have put paid to the internationalist impulse in foreign policy. The gathering outrage at the behaviour of the military junta in Burma reminds us that foreign policy, like life, is never quite so simple
Cyclone-hit Myanmar faces food shortages and may need to import rice if farmers in devastated areas do not get immediate help to plant a new crop, the UN food agency said on Thursday. Some 20 percent of rice fields in five declared disaster zones, including the Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, were damaged by the cyclone that killed up to 128,000 people, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.
Maharashtra Finance Minister Jayant Patil has floated a consultation paper on the concept of creating an exclusive club of progressive states to act as a pressure group for their developmental needs. A meeting of the potential members could take place in the next four months. Patil said he had received "overwhelming response" from progressive states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
After Tata Steel, Essar Steel is likely to join the race for Brazilian miner and steelmaker CSN's Nacionale Minerios (Namisa), a fully integrated iron ore company, Sources close to the development said Goldman Sachs has approached Essar with the acquisition proposal and the company was considering it. Goldman Sachs, which advised CSN during the takeover battle for Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus with Tata Steel last year, has been retained as its financial advisor for Namisa.
As a war of words rages over biofuels and their impact on world food supplies, researchers in India are promoting sweet sorghum as a crop that combines the best of both worlds. The plants, which grow three metres high in dry conditions, yield grain that can be eaten by people or animals; their stalks provide sweet juice for bioethanol production and a crushed residue that can be burnt or fed to cattle.
Climate change is threatening the major central Japan industry of cultivating seaweed for nori, a sector that has been going strong since the late Edo Period. A steady decline in the harvest of seaweed in shallow waters off the Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture is hurting fishermen and those engaged in making nori, who make up one of the principal industries in the region. Nori is perhaps best known as a wrapping for sushi.
Burma's military rulers have appealed for international help to get the county's cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta rice farmers back to their paddy fields, amid concerns about food shortages if they miss the planting season. The request came as Burma's state television yesterday said a military-sponsored constitution had won the support of 92.4 per cent of voters in a partial referendum on Saturday. A vote in cyclone-hit areas and Rangoon has been delayed until May 24.
The death toll from Monday's earthquake in China could reach as high as 50,000 people, the state council said last night, as rescue workers still struggled to reach some of the worst affected areas. The number of deaths announced so far rose yesterday to 19,500 in Sichuan province, the centre of the earthquake. However the sharp escalation in the expected death toll indicates that hopes are fading for the tens of thousands of people who are still buried under collapsed buildings.
Pressure is growing on Tata Motors' ability to hold the price tag of Rs 1 lakh for the Nano with leading auto-component suppliers saying they have approached the company for a price increase. With steel prices soaring, the company recently set up a special team to look at ways and means to control the car's manufacturing costs. Now Delhi-based Sona Koyo, which is supplying steering systems for the Nano, and Minda Group, which supplies electrical switches, have confirmed that they and other component suppliers have suggested a price rise to Tata Motors.
At least 100 people were killed and scores injured when fuel from a pipeline ruptured by an earthmover building a road on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital Lagos caught fire, the Red Cross said last night. "About 100 people have so far been confirmed dead. We have rescued more than 20 people and taken them to hospital," said one Red Cross official. Most of the deaths and injuries resulted from a stampede caused by the fire.
Oil drilling in the Arctic may need to slow down, now that polar bears, iconic symbols of global warming, are headed for protection under the US Endangered Species Act, experts said. US Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne this week added polar bears to the list of threatened animals under the act because their sea ice habitat is rapidly melting -- a move that comes just as the oil industry is pushing into offshore Arctic Alaska frontiers.
It's US National Bike to Work Day on Friday and Americans are facing record high gasoline prices, but most commuters will stick to their cars. The combination of gas near $4 a gallon and the annual campaign to get people to pedal to work may prompt a few more people than usual to commute on two wheels. But the majority won't consider the bicycle as a regular means of transport because they simply have too far to go and feel nervous about riding on traffic-choked streets, bicycling advocates and dedicated motorists say.
Two prominent green groups on Thursday said Canada should follow the lead of the United States and take action to protect polar bears, which are threatened by melting ice. Washington said on Wednesday it was listing the bears as a threatened species. Although Canada is home to around two-thirds of the world's 25,000 polar bears, Ottawa has not formally declared them in any kind of danger. "Canada is lagging behind in its global responsibility to protect wildlife," said Rachel Plotkin, a biodiversity policy analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation.
The "Friends of Zoo" scheme launched by the Kamala Nehru Zoological Park is going beyond its usual list of donors. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) authorities have sent letters to leading cricket stars, superstars like Amitabh Bachchan and socialites in the city like Geet Sethi and even those outside the state to adopt animals in the zoo. AMC has also resolved to increase the adoption limit from the present one year to 10 years. This period can even go up to the lifetime period of the adopted animal.
Even after more than a decade of its launching, the multi-crore costing Gangadhar Irrigation Project is lying abandoned causing severe hardship to thousands of poor farmers of the Greater area. Located at Unjan Petla village of Asom-Bengal was launched under the supervision of the Dhubri district branch of the State Irrigation Department.
A district level health society meet on Malaria was held under the presidentship of KK Kalita, principal secretary of the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council who is also the chairman of the district health society in his chamber today. This was stated in a press release.
World biodiversity has declined by almost one third in the past 35 years due mainly to habitat loss and the wildlife trade, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Friday It warned that climate change would add increasingly to the wildlife woes over the next three decades. "Biodiversity underpins the health of the planet and has a direct impact on all our lives so it is alarming that despite of an increased awareness of environmental issues we continue to see a downtrend trend," said WWF campaign head Colin Butfield.
The famous Samaguri lake, popularly known as Samaguri beel, covering an area of 64 hectares is to be converted into a scenic tourist spot. It has been learnt that the Government of Asom has sanctioned an amount of Rs 3 crore for the proposed project. To attract both local and foreign tourists, the Tourism Department has put a proposal to construct an ethnic village representing ethnic groups like Karbi, Dimasa, Missing, Tiwa et al depicting their traditional customs and culture within the ambit of the project.
