-The Business Standard   The new grain pricing policy for 2012-13 rabi marketing season seems a half-hearted attempt to make farmers grow more oilseeds and pulses, which are in short supply. This is apparent from a hefty hike of Rs 650 to Rs 700 a quintal, or around 35 per cent, in the minimum support prices (MSPs) of oilseeds and pulses and a relatively modest increase of Rs 115, or 10 per...

Reforms in the supply-chain system can help India tackle the demand-supply mismatch in essential food items Food inflation may have dropped to single digit but since that fall is set against last year’s elevated double-digit base, it continues to hurt the poor — 65 per cent of their disposable income goes towards food. The government often defends its failure to tame inflation by arguing that it has no magic wand to...

-PTI   Yoga guru Ramdev, who is on an indefinite hunger strike against black money and corruption, today made public details of his business empire worth over Rs 1,100 crore, claiming everything was in order. On his sixth day of fast, Ramdev addressed a press conference here during which his close aide Balakrishna said that the capital involving the four trusts run by him totalled Rs 426.19 crore while the expenditure incurred...

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev currently hitting headlines for his crusade against corruption and billions of dollars Indian black money stashed in Swiss and tax heaven banks is a “big landlord”. The 47-year-old “Bal Brahmchari” Ramdev, who was born as Ramkrishna Yadav in Alipur village, district Mahendragarh (Haryana), ‘owns’ huge tracts of land, that includes 261.468 hectares (644 acres) , worth hundreds of crores at the current market rate, around his yoga...

Indian farmers have much to celebrate this year with a bumper wheat harvest. As predicted by the ministry of agriculture, wheat farmers have begun to harvest what is shaping up to be a record crop, projected at 84.27 million tonnes. We are growing more wheat than ever before. The earlier record of 80.8 million tonnes of wheat production was achieved in 2009-10. Estimates show that foodgrain production including wheat, rice, pulses...