Alibaba's pervasive economic and social influence in China is seen as a threat to the authority of the Chinese Communist party, notes Shyam Saran.
In 2018, Mr Chouhan became chief minister for the fourth time with some support from Mr Scindia. This time, nothing can be said with any certainty.
India has secured approval of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the export of domestic mangoes to America in the new season, the commerce ministry said on Tuesday. The export of Indian mangoes has been restricted by the US since 2020 as the USDA inspectors were unable to visit India for inspection of irradiation facilities due to restrictions imposed on international travel because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On November 23, 2021, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and the USDA signed a framework agreement for implementing the "2 Vs 2" agri-market access issues.
'We will be hoisting the tiranga, but this kind of celebration is uncalled for when the farmers in this country are dying by suicides, their families are ravaged by poverty and farmers are not enjoying any freedom.'
Rajya Sabha took up the discussion on The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 and The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill that have already been passed by Lok Sabha.
The New Zealand police on Monday said they have received a "report" wherein it was alleged that two members of a delegation of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), the Amul brand owner, "inappropriately touched" a woman at a trade event in the island country a week ago.
After being underweight on domestic agrochemical companies and preferring global plays, brokerages believe that the former may perform better in the quarters ahead. Domestic crop protection companies have faced multiple headwinds over the past year and a half, given high inventory costs, pricing pressures, lower realisations in the generic segment, increased stocks due to lower infestations, and demand-led hits to volumes. Some of the overhang from previous quarters was reflected in the April-June quarter (first quarter, or Q1) of 2023-24 (FY24) as well, with aggregate revenues and operating profit for the sector down 12 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively.
Kerala, Punjab, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are among the major agriculturally important states that have banned the use of glyphosate citing its adverse impact on human health.
There are no plans of creating artificial rain.
FM announced no change in peak rate of customs duty for non-agriculture imports.
In a statement, the department of consumer affairs said about 18,000 kg of tomatoes were sold across Delhi-NCR to retail consumers.
Whether it was the MGNREGS or the NFSA or the Aadhaar-based DBT scheme for cash transfer, the Modi government has built on the basic architecture created by the Singh government. Policy makers in the Modi government, instead of discarding them as products of the previous political regime, worked on them, expanded their scope and reach, and used new tools to improve their performance, explains A K Bhattacharya.
Rainfall in August is predicted to be below normal (less than 94 per cent of LPA), but the situation is expected to improve comparatively in September, the IMD said.
Enthused by higher than expected GDP numbers in the fourth quarter of 2022-23, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran on Wednesday said India's economic growth may exceed the initial estimate of 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal and the country can look for another year of solid economic performance.
While Narendra Modi spent fewer days abroad than his predecessor -- 275 days versus Dr Singh's 306 - he has travelled more widely than any other Indian PM.
For the cooperation ministry, the government made a total budget outlay of Rs 1,150.38 crore for 2023-24, lower than the revised estimate of Rs 1,624.74 crore for 2022-23.
Nearly eight months after the government repealed the three controversial farm Acts, it has constituted a high-powered panel under the chairmanship of former agriculture secretary Sanjay Agarwal to make the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism more effective and transparent as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his televised address announcing the repeal. The names of three members from the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the main grouping that spearheaded the year-long agitation at Delhi's borders, have been withheld, pending receipt by the government, stated a gazette notification. NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand, Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad Professor Sukhpal Singh, Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative chairman Dilip Sanghani, secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Food and Consumer Affairs, Cooperation and Textiles, along with representatives from the state governments of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, and Odisha will also form part of the panel.
Fearing likely shortage, the government on Thursday said it has made an advance plan to import about 10 lakh tonne higher quality of tur dal via private trade this year to meet the domestic requirement. The issue was discussed in a high-level meeting called by the cabinet secretary to review the prices of essential commodities, especially pulses and onions. Tur production is pegged lower at 3.89 million tonne in the 2022-23 crop year (July-June) from 4.34 million tonne in the previous year as per the initial projection made by the agriculture ministry. Tur is a kharif crop.
Farm loan waivers should not be regarded as expenditure but as incentive and investment, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Finance Minister Jaswant Singh has said the country's economy is poised for rapid, broad-based expansion and a second revolution in agricultural productivity.
Ambassador Islam A'Isi' Siddiqui -- who recently resigned from his position as chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the United States trade representative -- has joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies as senior adviser on Global Food Security.
The irony of this scheme to benefit farmers is that it could add to the problems for the government because the mechanism to procure and store crops like pulses, coarse cereals and oilseeds barely exists.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in the United States for a three-day state visit, has gifted an eco-friendly lab-grown 7.5 carat diamond, placed in Kashmir's exquisite Papier mache box, to First Lady Jill Biden.
The Union government has reduced prices of subsidised tomatoes to Rs 70 per kilogramme from Thursday from Rs 80 per kg now to provide relief to common man from high retail prices. The Centre is selling tomatoes to people at a subsidised rate of Rs 80 a kg in Delhi-NCR and some other key cities through the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India (NCCF) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED). The all-India average retail prices of tomatoes is ruling at nearly 120 per kg, although the key kitchen item is selling as high as Rs 245 per kg at some places.
'The decision to supply free food grains is not an economically sound decision because the government will find it very difficult in future to charge anything for food grains.'
President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday said the country's farm production and procurement increased during 2020-21 crop year despite the pandemic and agricultural exports reached a record level of Rs 3 lakh crore during the same period. In his address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament at the start of the Budget session, Kovind said the government is focusing on making the country self-sufficient in edible oils besides making special efforts to promote organic farming, natural farming and crop diversification. "My government is working continuously to empower the farmers and the rural economy of the country... I would like to give maximum credit to the small farmers of the country for this consistent success and strengthening of the agriculture sector," he said.
Vodafone's Kisan Mitra will provide a spectrum of services for India's small farmers, simple mobile service interventions that can increase a farmer's income by Rs 8,000 per year.
With the Covid-19 pandemic showing signs of ebbing and economic activity picking up, factory owners in Jalandhar had hoped that the worst was over. However, the heat wave in April and extensive power cuts that came with it, have crushed their hopes. The city's large number of micro, medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) are now gearing up for yet another struggle, this time to survive with the shortage of power that is severely impacting their operations.
The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain a plea seeking directions to the Centre and states to take steps to ensure indigenous cows are artificially inseminated only with the semen of "pure indigenous" bulls and not those of "exotic foreign" breeds.
India is likely to experience below-normal monsoon rainfall this year, with a 20 per cent chance of drought due to the end of La Nina conditions and the potential for El Nino to take hold, private forecasting agency Skymet Weather said on Monday.
Another bill related to the farm sector, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, was passed on Tuesday.
'Aquaponics can effectively cushion the impact of a calamity like COVID.'
rediffGURU Baqar Iftikar Naqvi, start-up mentor, founder and CEO of Upriver Ecommerce, offers advice on how to navigate the many challenges of entrepreneurship.
India stands to lose more working hours to extreme heat than the rest of the world, in addition to the humanitarian cost of extreme heat events.
Finance ministry said on Friday that there was no cause for "panic" due to scanty rains in many parts of the country and it was too early to call it a drought, but expressed the fear that delay in monsoon was sure to affect agriculture productivity.
