-Livemint.com According to a background note prepared by the agriculture ministry, less than a fifth of targeted farmers have received soil health cards New Delhi: The government’s flagship scheme to correct the imbalance in fertiliser use and reduce costs of cultivation by providing all farmers with a soil health card is moving at a slow pace as states drag their feet. According to a background note prepared by the agriculture ministry and...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...

-The Indian Express Price and technology-led incentives alone will not help boost pulses and oilseeds production in the country. Indian agriculture is governed by an impossible trinity or “trilemma” that requires it to meet three simultaneous objectives — global competitiveness, social inclusiveness and environmental sustainability — each often at odds with the other two. Official policy has largely tilted towards supporting the first two goals, with token, if not grudging, acknowledgement of...

-PTI The government approved on Wednesday a Rs 6,000-crore special package for textiles and apparel sector to create one crore new jobs in 3 years, attracting investments of $11 billion and generating $30 billion in exports. The measures approved include additional incentives for duty drawback scheme for garments, flexibility in labour laws to increase productivity as well as tax and production incentives for job creation in garment manufacturing. “Over the last few years, apparel...

-The Times of India New Delhi: Amid predictions of good monsoon rainfall, Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh on Tuesday said the country would definitely see higher foodgrain production during 2016-17 even as he made it clear that there is no plan to tax agricultural income. While giving his reassurance, he said the Centre will probe if there was any anomaly in the system with regard to undeclared incomes. He said he...