-The Hindu Business Line It has worked as a rural safety net. But the Centre has other budgetary priorities A decade after the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme came into force, the NDA government has come around to accepting its usefulness — and that, in a difficult agriculture year. Last February, the Prime Minister disparaged the programme for merely digging pits. But only a few days ago, the finance minister...

-Business Standard The state demands that the insurance scheme should cover the produce lying in market yards, waiting to be bought by agencies Chandigarh: The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, hailed as one of the most farmer-friendly crop insurance schemes of independent India, has run into rough weather in Punjab. The state is at loggerheads with the Centre over the efficacy of the crop insurance scheme. "The new scheme provides an indemnity level...

-The Times of India It's 8:00 am on a Sunday and outside Denzong Cinema in Gangtok's Lal Bazar, the otherwise languid atmosphere is punctured by grocers of two kinds. On one side of the cinema are those who sell vegetables, fruits and spices sourced from outside Sikkim, mostly from Siliguri, 115 km south in West Bengal. On the other side of the cinema, almost completing a triangle, are farmers from the...

-The Indian Express Will not halt research but not rushing through decision, says Javadekar. HELPING THE government buy peace with activists protesting against granting clearance to the first transgenic food crop in the country, the biotechnology regulator on Friday deferred a decision on allowing the cultivation of a genetically-modified (GM) hybrid mustard. The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), a body under the Environment Ministry that regulates the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs),...

-Down to Earth International prices of basmati have been declining over the last two years With prices of grains and cereals plummeting worldwide, basmati rice exporters have urged the Union commerce ministry to include packaged basmati rice in the Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS). MEIS allows exporters of certain goods access to “Free on Board (FOB)” value, which means the shipping charges are borne by the importer instead of the exporter....