-The Hindu MADURAI: Muthumari's day starts at 4 a.m. She milks her cows in the cowshed behind the house and keeps cans of milk ready to be collected by a pickup van from a private dairy company. Then she turns to her household chores and sends her children off to school. Packing the day's food for herself, she proceeds towards the fields in her village at Udayanpatti. She is not just a...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel has asked the Centre to bring parity between wages under the rural employment guarantee programme and those given by states for agricultural labour under the Minimum Wages Act. The recommendation of the panel, headed by BJP leader Sumitra Mahajan, comes as a shot in the arm for the rural development ministry's proposal to link wages under the rural employment programme and the minimum wages...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Private players have placed orders to import around 7,000 tonnes of onions, while the government leaned on a public sector company to ship the key kitchen ingredient to beat the domestic shortage. The moves came even as the food and consumer affairs ministry said it will seek export curbs if prices did not ease in a fortnight. Senior government officials said Project Export Corporation was on...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Cultivable land in India continues to shrink. It may not pose an immediate problem for the nation's food security but its long-term effect could be disastrous with the country needing more and more foodgrains to support its growing population. Latest data from the agriculture ministry shows that as many as 20 states reported decrease in cultivable land to the extent of 790,000 hectares in four years...

-PTI New Delhi: Amid differences between rural development and agriculture ministries over implementation of works under rural job scheme, a parliamentary panel said that improper planning of jobs during farm season was causing labour availability problem in the key sector. "... Lack of proper planning of works under MNREGA without keeping in view of local agriculture practice is causing the problem of labour availability in agriculture sector," Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural...