-The Financial Express Sorai Village: Even as official data show food inflation at 5-6%, elevated levels compared with the subdued prices of most other items, farmers are barely realising remunerative prices for their produce, another reason why rural consumption demand is dismally low. Potato farmers in Uttar Pradesh, for example, are selling the vegetable at a fifth of the price a year ago, thanks to a glut caused by excess production...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The drug price regulator has capped prices of 30 medicines including antibiotics and those used in treatment of diabetes, tuberculosis and malaria. The move is expected to bring down prices of most of these medicines by 25-30%. However, in some cases the reduction could be by as much as 50%. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), which has the mandate to regulate prices of essential medicines,...

-The Indian Express Policy played a major role in helping the state claim no. 2 spot in wheat procurement. Vidisha: For Sandeep Baghel, the spanking state-of-the-art silos about 8 km from the mandi here are symbolic of the sheer transformation in the infrastructure for procurement and storage of grains, from the chaos of the past when farmers like him spent days on end to sell their wheat to state agencies. But the awe...

A recent press release from the Ministry of Agriculture shows that the area affected by recent rains and hailstorms is estimated to be 189.81 lakh hectares (on 24 April 2015), which is nearly double the total area affected that was earlier estimated on 16 April 2015. (See the link below). Experts argue that such extreme weather events may severely damage food economy of the nation, apart from breaking the spirit...

-Tehelka Agrarian policies are proving to be an albatross around the neck of ordinary farmers Amon Singh Kevat, 70, a small farmer in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, spent three long days in April waiting for his harvest to be picked up from an open plot that served as a mandi (procurement centre for agricultural produce). In need of money for a marriage in the family, Kevat didn’t even go home for meals. But...