Dairy farmers and contractors in western Uttar Pradesh and Punjab are on a warpath after private milk companies reduced procurement prices to take advantage of a bumper milk production. Farmers allege that companies are profiteering because they have not simultaneously reduced consumer prices. But companies say they have huge stocks of unsold milk and milk powder and a cut in procurement prices is to bring pressure on government to allow exports. Cooperatives...
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5.3 % share for children in Budget-Aarti Dhar
As much as 5.3 per cent of the Union Budget for 2012-13 is Budget for Children (BfC) with an increase of 0.3 per cent since 2011-12. This must be set against the inflation rate of 6.6 per cent. The increase can be attributed to the increased allocation in the development sector by 66.2 per cent and health by 29.7 per cent. However, as always, the share of the protection sector remains...
More »GEAC, experts slip on basics? by Latha Jishnu
As the biotech industry takes heart from the prime minister’s remark, a fresh report shows India’s regulation and expertise on GM crops are sloppy BUOYED by the prime minister’s remark that NGOs were responsible for the moratorium on the release of GM or Bt brinjal, the biotech industry is stepping up its campaign to get it lifted along with “all constraints in the research and development work of biotech crops”. It...
More »New policy to end dependence of farmers on cotton export
-The Times of India The Gujarat government has decided to come up with a new policy that would ensure that state's farmers do not have to depend on cotton export in order to earn a high price of their produce. Announcing this in the state assembly, state industries minister Saurabh Patel told the house that the government plans to come up with a scheme that would encourage the existing ginning mills...
More »A historic move to make drugs affordable-G Ananthakrishnan
India's use of the compulsory licensing provision under its patents law for the first time to make the patented cancer drug Nexavar available at affordable prices is an essential, although belated step to curb the mounting cost of drugs. The grant of the licence by the Controller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks to Natco Pharma for manufacture of the drug Sorafenib Tosylate (Nexavar) to treat liver and kidney cancer is...
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