The Times of India carries a story of what it calls “perhaps the first case of farmer suicide in Gujarat,”, in which “a debt-ridden farmer in Shera village of Bharuch district died on Monday by consuming pesticide.”
What do you get when you put together Fox News, the titan of mass media mendacity, with Monsanto’s truth-bending talent?
The exodus of people, particularly youth and women, from rural to urban areas has left male farmers in South Korea loveless. Entrepreneurs have stepped in to fill the gap.
Posters on the lampposts in Yangbuk declare: “Get a new life – marry a Vietnamese lady! You can pay later!”
Wal-Mart has just announced that it’s moving into India, partnering with Indian telecoms giant Bharti Enterprises. The Financial Times today reports that
Allowing in Wal-Mart through the back door will test the government’s determination to open the economy. By some
estimates, the Indian retail sector is worth $250bn, roughly a third of India’s entire gross domestic product.
With sales of more than $312bn last year, Wal-Mart benefits from massive scale economies and an ability to procure
globally, squeezing suppliers.
Indian “mom and pop” stores, by contrast, tend to be below 50 sq ft in size, run from stalls and mobile handcarts
and scattered across more than 5,000 towns and 600,000 villages. They are adept at holding the political class to
ransom.
“Over the next two-three years, the development in the retail sector may not have a significant impact on the
existing mom and pop shops,” says Morgan Stanley economist Chetan Ahya. “However, in the medium term, as the
reach of chain stores increases, some adverse impact on mom and pop shops is inevitable.”
The BBC, quite rightly, asks “Are fast foods really any worse for us than posher alternatives?”. Comparing similar meals at KFC and Nando’s, Domino’s and Pizza Express, and McDonald’s and Ed’s Diner, the second, more upmarket chain comes in more expensive, and wiht more calories. So why is it that the cheaper option gets a bad rap?
Paul Campos and friends have a good answer. In an important article in the International Journal of Epidemiology, Campos et al note that:
The Guardian carries a story on the attempts by the British telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, to ban the advertising of junk food to children. How do they administer the ban? Keep Reading »
The Hindu carries a report today in which Maharashtra’s Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, comes to the same conclusion as Stuffed and Starved: Farmers’ suicides happen all over the world.
Joel Bleifuss, investigative journalist extraordinaire, has a fine article up at In These Times dealing with the the real source of the E.Coli contamination. Yes, we know it comes from poo, but quite how did we end up eating so much shit? Bleifuss nails it with customary precision: Keep Reading »
The BBC informs us that among the many services immigrants are offered when they come to the US, is a
state-funded programme to improve the nutrition of refugees who are being re-settled in the land of plenty.
Any Neruda fan will tell you that poetry can be political. But how about the other way around?
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