-Scroll.in At the heart of the problem is a discrepancy between two laws on rights for Adivasis to the bamboo growing on their traditional forestlands. Across the world, taxonomists have classified bamboo as a grass. But under Indian law, it was treated as a tree. This definition has long given state forest departments monopolistic control over the valuable natural resource. On November 23, the central government loosened this grip by amending the...

-Newsclick.in This might help understand why there is a huge gap between the amount of loans banks claim they have given to the farmers and the amount that is actually received by the farmers. If you ever find yourself with time on your hands, and don’t know what to do with it – here is something that you can do. Just go to the website of Reserve Bank of India, and search...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Fruit juices, cereals, cereal-based foods and bakery products will soon have standards for fortification. Safe foods will have a logo of declaration set by national food regulator, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), CII National Committee on Nutrition chairperson Vinita Bali told ET. The committee, which includes large packaged food companies like Kraft Heinz, Britannia, ITC, Kellogg, Cargill and GSK Consumer, is working with FSSAI...

-The Financial Express How can the cotton and soybean farmers of Vidarbha and Marathwada supplement their incomes so they can get out of the trap of debt and self-engineered death? That was the theme of Union minister Nitin Gadkari’s ninth edition, four-day agricultural exhibition at Nagpur, called Agrovision, to which I was invited.  A promising beginning has been made. In October last year, the National Dairy Development Board commenced operations. It...

-Livemint.com The regulatory system for the seed and biotech industry should be transparent, science-based, predictable and fair For many decades, the Indian policy framework facilitated the interaction of science and innovation with entrepreneurship, which led to competition and the subsequent development of an industry structure that delivered sustainable economic benefits. The government was a major contributor to investments in seed research in India for close to three decades after independence. Policy reforms like...