The six-year-old Seeds Bill could be the next headache for the UPA government in Parliament. As the government plans to introduce the Bill in the Rajya Sabha this week, the Opposition, especially the Left parties, and several farmers’ organisations have ganged up against some of its provisions. The Left is also in touch with other political parties to put pressure on the government to remove certain “ antifarmer” clauses in the Bill. The...

The battle over genetically modified brinjal may resume shortly as an environment ministry agency readies its ammunition against arguments that the vegetable, the introduction of which has been halted by a government moratorium, threatens biodiversity and is unsafe for human consumption. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) will be going up against environment minister Jairam Ramesh, who was responsible for the decision to suspend cultivation of Bt brinjal after the panel...

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) will move a step closer to the realisation of its poll promise to promulgate a food security law if the Planning Commission, as is expected, conditionally approves the findings of the poverty panel report estimating the number of poor in the country at its meeting on Saturday. In preparation, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia met senior government officials and some members of the...

A“reworked and realistic” food guarantee scheme is on the anvil. The Suresh Tendulkar panel report is likely to form the basis for poverty estimation required for this. A hint to this effect came during a meeting of the core group of chief ministers on price rise chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Thursday. The government has been under pressure from state governments to make a fresh BPL assessment....

The government’s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and “not in the spirit of the election promises” in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday. The three-page note—a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times—came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers...