-The Business Standard Despite a marked improvement in the southwest monsoon, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said production of coarse cereals, pulses, oilseeds and rice, to some extent, would be less than last year. For sugar, the cane area is more. But, Pawar said, some drop in production can be expected as farmers in Karnataka and Maharashtra have diverted a sizeable portion of standing crop towards fodder. Announcing the second relief package...

-The Times of India CHANDIGARH: They have created a little Punjab in the arid Kutch region of Gujarat. Now, a number of these Sikhs - who have made Gujarat their home over a period of almost five decades now - are faced with the fear of displacement. The Gujarat government has put a 'freeze' on the land-holdings of hundreds of farmers by invoking the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1958, disabling...

-The Hindu Instead of rigid targeting, the government must build on the success of the public distribution system which is quietly becoming a significant means of social support In earlier writings, we have drawn attention to the quiet revival of the public distribution system (PDS) in many States during the last few years. Market prices of PDS commodities — mainly rice and wheat — have sharply increased, giving people a much greater...

-The Hindu The All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) on Monday expressed concern over dismantling of the Group of Ministers (GoM) set up in mid-2010 to examine the issue of crimes and killings in the name of “honour”. “Commitment” AIDWA president Shyamali Gupta said: “This GoM was constituted under the chairmanship of former Union Finance Minister [and President] Pranab Mukherjee to suggest legal and other measures for dealing with these crimes and killing. The...

-The Telegraph A government laboratory has detected cancer-causing fungal toxins exceeding safety limits in samples of ultra-high-temperature processed milk, suggesting that a contamination problem highlighted eight years ago remains unresolved. Scientists at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore, have found a compound called aflatoxin M1, a fungal product labelled a carcinogen, in about 20 per cent of the samples of UHT milk they examined. Earlier studies in India over the past...