एफएओ का कहना है कि साल 2010-2011 में अनाज के उत्पादन में रिकार्ड बढ़त( 2279.5 ) होने की संभावना है लेकिन बुरी खबर यह है कि सूखे की मार झेल रहे रूस में इस साल गेहूं के उत्पादन में पिछले साल के मुकाबले तकरीबन एक करोड़ ३० लाख टन कमी आने की आशंका है। साल 2008-09 में रूस में 63.7 मिलियन टन गेहूं का उत्पादन हुआ था जबकि इस साल आशंका है...

I want you to consider some well-known, oft-repeated facts: * About half of India’s children are malnourished, a record poorer than the world’s poorest area, sub-Saharan Africa. * India is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry — about 230 million people — according to the World Food Programme. * India is the world’s second-largest grower of rice and wheat, and more than 50 million tonnes of foodgrains lie in...

Food inflation remains extraordinarily high at 17.79%. The government emphasises supply problems caused by last year’s drought, But a bigger and less reversible problem is government-led inflation through big increases in the Minimum Support Prices (MSP). The MSP for wheat and paddy rose only modestly between 2002-03 and 2005-06 , from Rs 620 to Rs 650/ quintal and from Rs 530 to Rs 570/quintal respecticely. But after that the MSP shot...

WELL before Budget 2010-11 was presented, inflation had emerged as the principal economic problem in the country. With food-price inflation running at close to 20 per cent, even the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre had been forced to recognise it as a problem that deserved as much attention as the objective of achieving a 9 or 10 per cent rate of growth, if not more. In fact,...

Ranchi: It was a budget aimed at sweetening the bitter price rise pill. From cutting down VAT on diesel, sweets and ice- cream to making foodgrains available at Re 1 per kg for the poor, deputy chief minister Raghubar Das today presented an annual budget which focused on rural development, food security and social welfare. Chanting the “inclusive growth” mantra, Das, the BJP face in the Shibu Soren government, showed...