Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has launched development projects worth 253 crore in Jind district, focusing on irrigation, infrastructure, health, and water supply.
This would be due to early monsoon onset, abundant precipitation in the soil and the government's higher minimum support price (MSP) for farmers, the USDA said in its assessment.
Ukraine government officials have accused Russian forces of destroying grain storage facilities in the country. Nearly 25 million tonnes of grains are stuck in Ukrainian warehouses and unable to move out due to Vladimir Putin's War.
'It has the potential to sow seeds of furthering discord when the direction of the discourse is aimed at propagating the perceived supremacy of 'cultural nationalism' from a distant past over the prevailing dominance of 'Constitutional nationalism',' argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Three of the 36 sub-divisions -- West Uttar Pradesh; Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi; and Telengana -- got scanty rains with deficiency of 67 per cent, 64 per cent and 60 per cent respectively.
Around 800 people, including children and the elderly, are living in pitiable conditions in relief shelters near Thangjing temple and Moirang Lamkhai which are being run by three organisations.
Dr Shreekant Sambrani pays tribute to M S Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist and a lifelong crusader against hunger who passed away in Chennai recently.
Today, with the Lok Sabha polls only months away, any inter-state dispute over the Cauvery water dispute has the potential to take more political turns than otherwise, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
State Bank of India's house economists on Monday said the recent farm sector reforms reek of parochial thinking and promote lazy farming as they only cater to cereal-producing states. In the recently concluded monsoon session, the government rushed through three legislation to change the way agricultural produce is marketed, sold and stored by dismantling the decades-old APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) mandis.
'The Centre and state need to take a unified approach and take concerted action before this matter assumes menacing proportions because unemployment, the drug trade and the levels of frustration among the youth make them vulnerable to any maverick who promises something better.'
'There will always be a challenge to maintain a fine balance to ensure that the growth keeps happening and inflation is contained.'
Monsoon has missed its date this year with granary states of Punjab and Haryana.
Allaying apprehensions over the possibility of deficit rainfall this monsoon season, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Monday said it is too early to reach the conclusion that something adverse is happening.
Faced with the dichotomy of overflowing granaries and rising commodity prices, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said the government will do 'everything possible' to put the lid on food inflation.
However, storage capacity way behind even present public distribution system procurement need.
The praise for peasants, most of whom are subsistence farmers, comes ahead of general elections due in a few months. The minister presented statistics to hard-sell the government's initiatives to prop up the agriculture sector and improve the conditions of roughly about 60 per cent of the country's population depending upon it.
According to the official data, the Centre has 50.4 million tonnes of food grains -- 18.79 million tonnes of rice and 31.62 million tonnes of wheat -- in its granaries as of July end. If consumption this year remains at the level of 2008-09 when rainfall was fairly better leading to higher supply of food grains in the market, the government can still feed the entire country for a good 82 days.
The culture of freebies burdens coming generations with the huge bill for the flagrant abuse of power by preceding governments, points out Virendra Kapoor.
A huge cache of arms and ammunition belonging to the banned United Liberation Front of Asom were recovered by the police from Sadiya while the Army shot dead two militants in Bongaigaon district on Saturday.During a raid conducted on the basis of specific information, the Assam police stumbled upon a cache of 27 AK 56 assault rifles, 117 magazines and 400 ammunition hidden in the granary of a village household at Kukurmara village in Sadiya sub-division of Tinsukia district.
Farmers of Punjab are not celebrating the farm loan waiver yet, viewing the loan waiver as a 'temporary crisis management measure' by political parties ahead of an impending election. Going by National Sample Survey Organisation's (NSSO) figures, every farmer household in India was having an average outstanding loan of Rs 1,258. In Punjab, it was the highest at Rs 41,576 (December 03 figures). The recovery rate of institutional loan in Punjab was 85%, highest in the country.
The world must take care when developing biofuels to avoid perverse environmental effects and higher food prices
The government is actively considering putting quantitative restrictions on foodgrains exports or alternatively increasing the ex-granary prices as part of a proposed new grain export policy.
A day ahead of former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's visit to Rajasthan to raise the voice of the farmers against the farm laws, he said that the Centre should withdraw the laws and after thorough consultation with farmers and states, come up with a new set of legislations which the tillers would themselves want and is not something that is forced upon them.
When the Indian economy tanked in 1991, it did so because it ran out of foreign exchange. Today, it is tanking because it has run out of rupees even as the foreign exchange granary is overflowing, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Rahul Khullar's guiding credo was that a civil servant must never lose sight of his client: The little guy. The evil men are those who are decision-makers but abdicate their responsibility of taking decisions, leading people to lose confidence in public institutions.
'India shares the world's pain, but India's pain is not the world's.' 'Little that occurs here is even reported abroad,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
Lush agricultural lands have turned parch as groundwater levels deplete to new lows, and wells and water reservoirs go dry. While the administration points to deficient rainfall as a reason, experts and activists say the drought is mostly man-made.
London has been spectacularly lit up as the Lumiere festival returns to the capital. The city's largest light festival, commissioned by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and produced by Artichoke, started on January 18 and will continue till January 21. Here are some of the highlights from the festival.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Salopek is on an intercontinental journey of 24,000 miles, tracing humankind's movement out of Africa right down to South America.
At least seven persons, including three women, were killed in a remote village in Assam's Karbi Anglong district on Friday during a clash between Karbi tribe militants and Rengma Naga who defied quit notice served on them by the Karbi ultras.
'The Modi government must create conditions to integrate millions into the rural economy as many migrants are certainly not going to return to live an undignified life,' notes Ramesh Menon.
Unlike in the past, when old private banks compromised upon underwriting standards to take on the bulk, they've now realised that scaling up at the cost of quality isn't worth the while. These banks have also readjusted growth targets when required, and rebalanced books to preserve capital and asset quality.
The NDA is looking to reduce fiscal deficit not by chopping social sector spending but by paring it down
The best option to reduce farm distress in the state is that when the rains fail, the state -- the central and the state government -- provide a financial cushion for the farmer
Back from a tour of Punjab mandis, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the plight of farmers triggering an uproar in Lok Sabha.
The prime minister said gradually people are "shedding their hard currency mindset" and moving towards digital currency and the youth are leading the way using their mobile phones as the new tool to make and receive payments.
Curses, folklore and family feuds swirl around Tughlaqabad Fort
Maharashtra has a rich wealth of forts, more than any other state in the country. 'If nothing is done, some of the small forts may simply disappear in the next 50 years.'
India annually spends Rs 4.5 lakh crore on importing petroleum products, and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari feels methane is a cost-effective import substitution. But is it? Pallava Bagla examines the pros and cons.
About one-third of the world's poor live in India but there are countries where 88 per cent of population is extremely poor.
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