The initial euphoria over the chance of getting back their land over, clouds of apprehension and confusion now hang over Singur. The farmers whose land was acquired for the Tata Nano project celebrated on May 13 when Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress won the elections. They were glued to their TV sets when the chief minister announced yesterday that she would make good her promise of returning 400 acres to “unwilling” farmers. But...

Food-price inflation in India, Asia’s third-largest economy, may accelerate in the second half as farmers are paying 20 percent more to grow crops, according to the commission that helps set minimum farm-product prices. “The cost of production is going up very fast,” Ashok Gulati, chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “The labor cost has gone up dramatically in the past one year...

Octogenarian Sita Devi was in tears when district magistrate of Gonda, Ram Bahadur, handed her the land ownership title. She was five-year-old when her family was forced into bonded labour by British forest officers posted in Gorakhpur. The family was given a piece of land for planting trees and to grow crop for its survival. They family was shifted to other place after five years for the same job. From...

-The Hindu   The government has approved the recommendations of the expert committee formed to suggest alternatives to the pesticides banned by it recently. The government asked Kerala Agricultural University to conduct study on the quality and utility of the alternatives, recommended on an interim basis, and examine whether better alternatives were available. The expert committee recommended ten pesticides in lieu of carbofuran which is used against certain pests in paddy and other...

The Empowered Group of Ministers is likely to meet soon to consider a proposal from the Agriculture Ministry to allow wheat exports in the wake of bumper production. "The EGoM is expected to meet in a week or 10 days," Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia said here today. The ministers panel is headed Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and comprises Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar , Commerce and Industry Minister...