-PTI The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will put up a complaint and suggestion box at its pharmacy on the hospital campus to check discrepancies in the distribution of medicines at less than half the price. The 24-hour pharmacy is expected to provide all medicines and surgical consumables prescribed by doctors to outpatients at a 56 per cent discount on the minimum Retail price. “The pharmacist has been instructed to provide...

Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar, India’s biggest rural Retail chain by sales, which operates 230 stores across eight states and had seen good growth in the past two years, said it had seen a fall in rural demand in the past two to three months. A drop in prices of potatoes, onions and some other vegetables, leading to low realisation for farmers, and an increase in cost of fertiliser, are reasons for these...

The government plans to raise prices of urea, the most widely consumed fertiliser in the country, by a steep 40%. The move, necessitated by the government's mounting subsidy burden, is a test of its political courage as it comes just ahead of elections in five states.  Farmers in India use about 28 million tonne of urea annually, of which 6-8 million tonne is imported. The uptrend in prices of imported urea...

Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz today said he was aware of the problems industry was facing in acquiring land in Bengal and suggested that government role in facilitating acquisition could help reduce the difficulty. “I talked to some people and they said it’s (land acquisition) a problem here,” said Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University, during an interaction with journalists. The former chief economist at the World Bank expressed his...

-The Economic Times   Farm sector has sought reforms in supply chain infrastructure, rationalisation of subsidies, decentralised handling of foodgrain, and higher resources to farm productivity and ensure food security.  Presenting its pre-budget wish list to the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, a delegation of farmers and sector experts said there was a need to boost investment in farm sector to tackle food inflation. Farm sector growth is likely to be 3-3.5% in 11th...