-The Hindu Chennai: Despite producing 27 per cent of the global requirement of pulses, India is still short of around five million tonnes, said S.A. Patil, consultant, Indo-Morocco Food Legume Initiative, at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) on Tuesday. Addressing a press conference to announce a three-day consultation on ‘Enhancing the productivity and profitability of pulses for Addressing Food and Nutrition Security,’ at the MSSRF from Sunday, Dr. Patil said the...

-The Hindu Business Line The Government has several short and long-term strategies to achieve self-sufficiency Who can deny that pulses are at the core of the average Indian diet? Therefore, the NDA government’s multi-pronged short-term and long-term strategies to meet the growing consumption of pulses in the country — from importing to increasing production through new technologies, and making cultivation attractive to farmers — is to be welcomed. In fact, pulses play...

-TheWire.in The question to ask is whether it makes environmental sense or effects social justice to ship our dals from across the seas? Pulses — that group of legume crops which includes chickpeas, cowpeas, moong beans, red kidney beans, urad beans, lentils and diverse grams. No matter what your personal choice of dal is though, India is probably eating many if not most of them. But as the world’s largest consumer of...

-The Indian Express The current bill does not take into account any of the criticism voiced against an earlier version, proposed under the UPA government in 2013; it continues to ignore the Forest Rights Act. A recent controversial bill that outlines a framework for the utilisation of compensatory afforestation funds is being strongly contested and challenged by civil society actors. It raises important questions that are fundamentally connected to forests: Whose...

-Frontline The inability to resolve pressing problems with respect to the production, distribution and availability of food is one of the important failures of the entire economic reform process. IN the fateful month of July 1991, when the devaluation of the Indian rupee presaged the introduction of a whole series of liberalising economic reforms, agriculture was very far from the minds of most policymakers and commentators. The immediate focus was on...