-The Hindu   The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) is totally safe, asserts the expert group constituted by the Government of India. In a release, A.E. Muthu Nayagam, group convenor, said, “Based on its extensive examination of various issues, there should be no cause for concern about the safety” of the plant. He pointed out that it was designed and engineered to the state-of-art of nuclear reactors in line with the current international safety...

Agriculture sector undergoes a historic change as livestock surpasses the economy of food grain Policy makers in India are finally acknowledging a structural shift in the agriculture sector they have been noticing for a decade. Economic contribution of livestock is today more than that of food grain crops. Traditionally, of the three components of the sector—crops, livestock and fisheries—crops drove the growth, and food grains are a major part of it....

-The Times of India   Rampant corruption in government-run welfare schemes, and not just indebtedness, was one of the major reasons behind farmers in Madhya Pradesh killing themselves, a high-level committee appointed by the state human rights commission has reported. After probing the more than 4000 farmer suicides in the state during the last few years, the two member committee comprising renowned agriculture expert G S Kaushal and retired sugar cane commissioner...

After milk, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has found contamination to be quite common among food items across the country.  A comparative analysis has shown adulteration rates as high as 40% in Chhattisgarh, 34% in Uttarakhand, 29% in Uttar Pradesh, 23% in Rajasthan and 20% in West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh. Besides, nearly 17% of the food samples tested in Bihar and Chandigarh, 16% in Nagaland, 15% in...

In the first high-level red-flag against the UPA government’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that while assets created under the NREGA “may or may not have productive use”, the programme was “adversely” impacting the agriculture sector by “drawing out agriculture labourers from agricultural operations”.   In a letter sent to the prime minister late last month, Pawar is...