-The Financial Express The agriculture ministry is not reconciled to the grip which Monsanto has on the Indian cottonseed industry owing to the immense preference for its patented, genetically-modified (GM) bollworm-resistance traits. On May 16, Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta intervened in a dispute between Monsanto and its biggest (now divorced) sub-licensee, Hyderabad-based Nuziveedu Seeds. He made written submissions on behalf of the government, a week after hearings on the matter had...

-Hindustan Times The Centre has renamed the Matritva Sahyog Yojana - a scheme under which pregnant and lactating mothers get Rs 6,000 for the first live birth - as Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) in yet another instance of the Prime Minister’s name being prefixed to a government programme. Government sources said the name of the scheme, which was cleared by the Union cabinet last week, was changed to make it...

-Hindustan Times There are almost no jobs available in India’s high-growth economy. Job creation has plummeted to levels even below those of preceding UPA governments. Of the one million new people who join the workforce every month, only 0.01% of new workers added to the work force actually found work. For millions of young voters Prime Minister Modi’s most alluring election promise in 2014 was that his government would create ten million...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Five years after sequencing the pigeonpea genome, Indian scientists have identified Madhya Pradesh as the centre of origin of this nationwide staple legume and discovered genes they say will allow the expansion of pigeonpea cultivation. Scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) near Hyderabad and their collaborators in Australia, China and the US yesterday announced the results of a new study that has traced...

-IANS Patna: Greenpeace India, the environment protection organisation, has welcomed and lauded the Bihar government's decision to give priority to organic farming. "This initiative will prove sustainable for the agriculture and food SECurity in the long run," a Greenpeace official said here on Monday. According to the organisation, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has directed the state's Agriculture Department officials to give priority to organic farming, and said it should be the basis...