-The Economic Times   Rural Indian households are spending more on consumer goods like durables, beverages and services than five years ago, shows the latest expenditure data that debunks the notion that rapid growth in recent years did not benefit the hinterlands. The household consumer expenditure survey for 2009-10, released by the National Sample Survey Office ( NSSO )) on Friday, shows rising real spending in rural areas, even though it...

The food ministry seems to have given up the hope of seeing the Food Security Bill passed into a law this financial year. But the delay in the rollout of one of the government's most ambitious welfare schemes will surely bring joy to mandarins at the North Block , who have been battling to rein in the government's expenditure. The food security law, which envisages subsidized grains for at least...

-News on Air   The Food Security Bill finalised by the National Advisory Council will be brought to Parliament shortly for approval. The draft bill entitles 75 percent of the population to highly subsidised food grains. It provides for people living Below Povery Line getting rice at three rupees a kilogram and wheat at two rupees a kilogram. The Bill proposes that general households will have the right to 20 kilograms...

-The Times of India   Food inflation eased to a six-week low on the back of improved supplies of vegetables and pulses in mid-June but fuel inflation inched up sustaining the price pressures on the economy. Data released by the commerce ministry showed that food inflation slowed to 7.78% in the week to June 18, declining from the previous week's 9.13%. Food inflation has been volatile in the past few months...

Andhra farmers shun growing paddy this kharif in absence of buyers, storage space Achanta, a small village in Andhra Pradesh, hit the headlines in 1967 with a record rice yield in the kharif or monsoon crop season. It was the time of the Green Revolution. N Subba Rao, a farmer from the village, harvested three tonnes of paddy from just one kilogramme of seeds. Other farmers followed suit and the village...