-The Hindu The new Seeds Bill is tilted against farmers’ interests and loaded in favour of seed companies. After passing through at least two versions, Seeds Bill 2019 is now under Parliament’s consideration. The earlier versions of the Bill, in 2004 and 2010, had generated heated debates. The present version promises to be no different. In 1994, India signed the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In 2002, India also...
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Government procured just 3% of pulses, seeds targeted under PM-AASHA scheme
-The Hindu Under the Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan scheme, only 1.08 lakh tonnes have been procured so far. Less than 3% of this season’s sanctioned amount of pulses and oilseeds have actually been procured so far under the once-hyped PM-AASHA scheme, Agriculture Ministry data show. Arrivals of these crops began in October and will end by February. A total of 37.59 lakh metric tonnes of procurement had been sanctioned under the...
More »Gujarat farmers sow potato seeds registered by PepsiCo, in symbolic protest -Jitendra
-Down to Earth The multinational had sued four farmers in April, triggering a controversy that has now been reignited Farmers in Gujarat have sowed a variety of potato seeds registered by multinational PepsiCo, in a symbolic protest against the food and beverage corporation, a farmer leader told Down To Earth (DTE). “In the last four days, more than 500 farmers have come forward to sow the FC-5 variety of seeds which our organisation...
More »Who is a farmer? Government has no clear definition -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu Such an ambiguity has serious implications for the design and beneficiaries of schemes meant to help them Who is a farmer? What is the government’s definition of a farmer and how many farmers are there in India by that definition? Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar failed to answer that question when it was asked in Parliament last week. The government’s ambiguity has serious implications for the design and beneficiaries of the...
More »Economic growth slowest in 26 quarters -R Suryamurthy
-The Telegraph An over six-year low of 4.5 per cent The Narendra Modi government’s bluster on the state of the Indian economy was bottled on Friday after the National Statistical Office (NSO) came out with data that showed growth in the second quarter had sunk to an over six-year low of 4.5 per cent — the slowest expansion in 26 quarters. The sharp slowdown was triggered by a contraction in the manufacturing sector...
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