Agriculture
The politics of food -- Keeping the other half hungry
SOME months ago, a few hundred people in the US mostly agricultural scientists signed an AgBioWorld Foundation petition appealing to the seed multinational giant Aventis CropScience to donate some 3,000 tonnes of genetically-engineered experimental ric
e to the needy rather than destroy it. More than feeding the hungry, the appeal was a public relations exercise to demonstrate the concern of biotechnology proponents towards feeding the worlds poor.
Economy
Unequal growth trends in global economy
WHY do some countries grow fast and some others lag behind? This question has intrigued economists for long. Various explanations have been tried, but most of them fail to identify a single factor as responsible for the differential growth. Availability
of resources, both in terms of labour and capital, is a prime cause for growth. But there is more to growth than labour and capital. Technology is also important. Various studies on growth accounting have emerged in the recent period trying to analyse th
e variations between different economies.
Vision 2020 -- Why India has no Silicon Valleys
THE pioneers of the Silicon Valley took a conscious decision not to build closer than 400 feet from the highway. In the last century, the pioneers who settled in the Wild West made their main streets a hundred feet wide. Such deliberate avoidance of cong
estion was due to civic consciousness and civic pride.
A laymans look at US recession
MISFORTUNES seem to be dogging the American economy. First, it was the crash in computer industry in the wake of the dot com bubble burst, then came the energy crisis with its disastrous effects on major industries, after which the terrorist attack on Ne
w York on September 11 shook the entire nation, and now, the fear of biological warfare. What began as a downward trend in business, steadily extended into the new year and soon the US economy was dragged into a quagmire
Editorial
A mine of problems
UNRESTRICTED ENTRY OF the private sector in coal mining, it appears, is not going to be a reality in the near future. For, the Group of Ministers (GoM), which studied the issue, has recommended that the Bill to amend The Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act,
1973 not be introduced in the current session of Parliament.
Miscellaneous
Art of selling nothing
WHILE on the one hand enormous amounts are dished out to advertisers, marketing executives and salespersons for pushing up sales by hook or by crook, is it not funny to come across on the other an outfit -- tantalisingly calling itself Adbusters Media Fo
undation -- located in Canada propagating the sheer delight of selling or buying nothing whatsoever!
A code for MPs and MLAs
THERE can be no two views on the need to ensure that proceedings in the nations legislatures should be toned up in the sense that members should give a far better account of themselves than has been the case till now. Of course, the view can be contested
on the claim that the basic assumption is incorrect; in other words, there is no need to do anything of the sort because members of legislatures are already functioning in the way they should.
Paper/Packaging
Is paper manufacturing feasible in India?
PAPER mills in India manufacture approximately 350 grades of paper, ranging from writing, printing, kraft and poster to coated art paper, newsprint and laser printing.
