-The New Indian Express CHENNAI: Five years ago, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had put an indefinite moratorium on the commercial cropping of Monsanto’s Bt Brinjal. However now, the Centre is considering commercial cultivation of a genetically modified hybrid variety of mustard. Following news reports on the move of the application for approval of GM Mustard to the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee in the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change...

-The Times of India RANCHI: Harsh Mander, the special commissioner appointed by the Supreme Court of India to advise it in the Right to Food case, met chief secretary Rajiv Gauba on Monday and asked the state government to initiate relief measures for the drought-affected farmers in the state where the Kharif crop has suffered damage due to deficit monsoon. Mander was here on his periodic visit to review and assess the...

-The Indian Express There is a worrying dearth of Indian economists working on agriculture today. In his classic Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, John Kenneth Galbraith observed how the economics profession had a well-defined order of precedence. At the top were the economic theorists and specialists in banking and finance. At the bottom of the hierarchy were agricultural economists. George F. Warren from Cornell University was even worse — a...

-PTI The Agriculture Ministry has moved a proposal to create a buffer stock of 3.5 lakh tonnes of lentils during the current 2015-16 crop year through domestic purchase or imports to prevent a further price rise in pulses. “The Agriculture Ministry has sought inter-ministerial comments on a proposal to create a buffer stock of 3.5 lakh tonnes of pulses in 2015-16 crop year,” sources said. Out of the proposed 3.5 lakh tonnes, about...

-Business Standard Since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government put a moratorium on commercial cropping of Monsanto's Bt Brinjal in 2010, the Centre has received the first- ever proposal for clearance in five years to let farmers grow a transgenic food crop - a genetically modified hybrid variety of the mustard plant. The decision on the proposal would have to be taken by the environment ministry on behalf of the Union...