The forthcoming India visit of the US President, Mr Barack Obama, accompanied by Mr Thomas J. Vilsack, secretary of agriculture, and Dr Rajiv Raj Shah, administrator, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is significant in the context of strengthening the Indo-US partnership in the field of agriculture production and sustainable food security. Several related issues will be discussed in Mumbai on November 6 and November 7 where an agriculture...

If you think canned rasgullas are a better option than khoya-based sweets this Diwali, think again. The mouth-Watering sweets sold by big brands at high prices have been found to have micro-organisms that can cause diseases. Also, it has been found that most of the canned rasgullas have a higher percentage of syrup than prescribed. It's claimed that in one of the cans weighing a kilogram, the drained weight of rasgullas...

National Food Security Act can help bring down malnutrition and maternal mortality rates in the country, Biraj Patnaik, principal adviser to the Supreme Court commissioners on right to food, said Wednesday. 'Anaemia during pregnancy is one of the main reasons for maternal death, because that may cause haemorrhage. Food supplement which can tackle iron deficiency is the way to face this challenge,' Patnaik said. According to Patnaik, the body mass index (BMI)...

The prospects of a bumper foodgrain yield during the monsoon have considerably dimmed as the threat of cyclone looms large and heavy rains continue to batter several coastal districts. Standing crop spread over an estimated 2.83 lakh hectares (a little over 7 lakh acres), according to preliminary estimates, is under Water in six coastal districts. The extent could be much higher after the assessment of the damage is complete. A cyclonic...

Even as the popular demand for creation of separate Vidarbha state and development of the region is doing rounds for some time, a gross negligence on part of both, the politicians and the bureaucrats implementing the state government schemes has surfaced. Sources close to the divisional commissionerate told PTI that as many as Rs1193.88 crore out of a total allocation and release of Rs2997.03 crore of Vidarbha package have not been...