The Kerala Assembly has passed a landmark law that makes Coca-Cola liable for damages of up to Rs 216 crore for alleged pollution and exploitation of groundwater at its bottling plant in northern Palakkad district. A committee appointed by the state government has quantified the loss caused by the plant to the local community at Rs 216 crore since the soft drinks maker set up the unit in arid Plachimada. The previous...

With higher sowing of wheat, pulses, sugarcane, cotton and oilseeds reported this rabi season, there are expectations of a bumper crop production this year. The total food grains output is expected to be 232.07 million tonnes, which is only marginally lower than the record production of 234.47 million tonnes in 2008-09. Announcing the second advance estimates of food grains production for the 2010-11 crop year last week, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed a conference on ‘Leveraging agriculture for improving nutrition and health’ in New Delhi, organised by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), as part of International Policy Consultation. “Nutrition and health are issues are particularly topical today as the world faces rising food prices in many countries and there is growing recognition that climate change may endanger food security in many developing countries. Leveraging agriculture for...

Buoyed by bumper production estimates this year, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today favoured export of certain commodities like non-basmati rice, sugar and onion to protect the interests of the farming community. “Generally we feel, we should take a total liberalised approach on export of certain items...Farmers are raising concern that prices of some commodities are going down,” Pawar told reporters here. Citing onion case as an example, Pawar said farmers, who were...

Sikkim has become the only state to bag the national award in all three categories for exemplary work done under MG-NREGA during the recent Mahatma Gandhi NREGA Sammelan in New Delhi. The sammelan was held to commemorate the completion of the fifth year of the commencement of this programme and to give away awards to the best performing gram panchayats, district MGNREGA teams and NGOs by the Union Rural Development ministry. North...