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India's accession to the WTO in 1995 brought a new set of challenges for its agriculture. Most of the policies supporting agriculture, especially price support and input subsidies, labelled by the agreement on agriculture (AoA) as domestic support measures, were under the scanner. The price support measure that India uses, namely, the minimum support price (MSP) provided to most of the major crops now faces a problem as the methodology of calculating the extent of subsidies on account of MSP is working against India. Further, the AoA prevents India from using export subsidies since it was not using this instrument in the past. But the agreement allows the advanced countries that were using export subsidies to continue using this instrument, albeit at a lower level. Equally problematic for India is the fact that AoA rules are constraining the implementation of the National Food Security Act, which provides subsidised foodgrains to the disadvantaged sections. JEL codes: F13, Q17, Q18

The plaintiff's husband used to pay his air travel flights by credit card which was issued to him by the Banco Hispano Americano (BHA) where he also had a current account. The BHA had an agreement with an insurance company whereby a payment of up to 20 million pesetas in compensation was payable to the credit card holder (or their beneficiaries) for personal injuries suffered as a consequence of an accident as a passenger on public transport if the transport was paid for by means of the credit card.
The credit card holder tried to arrange a flight in February 1985. The travel company told him that his credit card had been cancelled. When he enquired about this at the bank, it transpired that there had been an error. In cancelling the card of another customer of the bank with the same name, who did not have any money in his account, the bank had also cancelled that of the plaintiff's husband. Since he could not pay for his ticket by means of a credit card, he arranged for payment through the company that he worked for. The plane on which he travelled crashed causing the death of all passengers. His wife sued the BHA for the 20 million pesetas compensation that would have been payable if the flight had been paid for by credit card. The Tribunal Supremo decided that the credit card holder had been negligent by not taking out alternative insurance after having accepted the Bank's explanations of the reason for the cancellation of his credit card. Therefore, the BHA was only held liable for 50% of the claim.

Climate change has a profound impact on agriculture and on food security. At the same time agriculture contributes to climate change to a considerable extent. Fortunately there is also much to gain since the agricultural sector holds significant climate change mitigation potential through reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and enhancement of sequestration. A policy aimed at achieving greenhouse gas emission reductions, adaptation to climate change and an increase in productivity is, therefore, very much needed. "Climate smart agriculture" policies are being proposed, but so far remain underdeveloped. This article reviews whether the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement pushes towards the development of such policies. It finds that, unfortunately, the Paris Climate Agreement does not provide a powerful stimulus to adopt and implement climate smart agriculture policies. The Paris Climate Agreement does not change the troublesome relationship between agriculture policies and climate policies that we have already witnessed under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. There is some attention for adaptation to climate change in rural areas in developing countries, but progress is painfully slow. For the developed countries, the UNFCCC does not make much of a contribution to addressing climate change and food security issues. This is a pity, as the developed country agriculture sector will play an important role in addressing the increasing global demand for food. Developed countries, including important players such as the EU, should, therefore, not wait for the UNFCCC process. The EU recently announced its intention to implement an ambitious policy aimed at climate friendly and resilient food production, while optimising the agricultural sector's contribution to greenhouse gas mitigation and sequestration. It is of vital importance that this example is followed and implemented across the globe. Hopefully such initiatives will then be picked up by the international community under the UNFCCC process.