The goal of food for all can be achieved only through greater and integrated attention to production, procurement, preservation and public distribution. The President, in her address to Parliament on June 4, 2009, announced: “My Government proposes to enact a new law — the National Food Security Act — that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all. Every family below the poverty line in...

AS CONCERN for the ecosystem runs high all across the world, a small, mountainous state in India’s northeast — Sikkim, has taken a step ahead and declared to go completely organic by the year 2015. What this means is the total phasing out of chemical inputs from agriculture. Sikkim has long been an ecologically conscious state with initiatives such as a comprehensive ban on plastic, bio-medical and chemical waste in...

Anand Sharma rules out loss of jobs or displacement of small vendors A re-orientation of the policy framework was the need of the hour and enhanced foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail would transform the rural economy and generate massive employment and opportunities for both rural and urban youth. This was stated by Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma here on Wednesday. This was his first comments to a discussion...

The Union budget estimates the nominal rate of growth for the Indian economy to be 12.5 per cent during the current fiscal. While it is impossible to figure out the manner in which this number was arrived at, the government has predicted further that the inflation-adjusted real growth rate for the same year will be eight per cent. Simple arithmetic requires that the difference between the nominal and real growth...

The emerging economies of Brazil, India, China and Russia will enjoy an agricultural boom over the next decade as production stalls in Western Europe, a report says. Agricultural output in the Bric nations will grow three times as fast as in the major developed countries, the joint United Nations-OECD study said. Livestock and crop prices will stay above long-term averages, it added. And rising incomes and urbanisation in developing states...