-Livemint.com Radha Mohan Singh says the monsoon this year has been well distributed with 5.3 million hectare more area planted that could see a record production of foodgrains New Delhi: After two years of drought and declining crop production, a record foodgrain production on the back of a well distributed monsoon is expected in 2016-17, agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh said on Thursday. While pulses production could touch 22 million tonnes, up...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...

-The Indian Express On Independence Day, we salute our freedom fighters. We also remember Lal Bahadur Shastri who gave us the slogan, jai jawan, jai kisan.   PM Modi needs to move from slogans to action to transform agriculture.   Atal Bihari Vajpayee expanded the slogan to jai jawan, jai kisan, jai vigyan. The present government has an array of slogans for the farmers. Prime Minister Modi has coined so many — swacchh bharat,...

-The Indian Express Price and technology-led incentives alone will not help boost pulses and oilseeds production in the country. Indian agriculture is governed by an impossible trinity or “trilemma” that requires it to meet three simultaneous objectives — global competitiveness, social inclusiveness and environmental sustainability — each often at odds with the other two. Official policy has largely tilted towards supporting the first two goals, with token, if not grudging, acknowledgement of...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The government is readying a new policy framework to rein in the inflationary impact and stabilise the supply of pulses, a widely consumed but scarce food item with economy-wide implications. Three ministries – agriculture, food and finance – and the state-run policy think-tank Niti Aayog are coordinating efforts to frame the new measures that will see the government step in as one of the key importers of pulses. “The...