-DNA   In the midst of the euphoria in the capital markets, after a strong mandate for Narendra Modi, the loud cries of wailing farm widows have been lost in the noise and cacophony that followed. To my mind, this is the biggest policy paralysis that afflicts the country. So when I heard Modi speak at the Central Hall of Parliament the other day: "Ours will be a government that thinks, works and...

-PTI   Nagpur: Hundreds of farm widows from Vidarbha have huge expectations of a relief and rehabilitation package from the newly-elected BJP government at the Centre to combat the agrarian crisis in the region. Some widows who were indirectly a part of 'Chai Pe Charcha' on March 9 this year at village Dabhadi of Vidarbha region during the election campaign, have brought to notice core issues like cost, credit and crop failure resulting...

-Brookings   India's agriculture policies aimed at improving its food security have received increased scrutiny following the December 2013 World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Bali, where India's position on this issue almost doomed the entire talks. In fact, the growing use of agriculture subsidies by India and other developing countries like China are changing the dynamics of the WTO negotiations for new agriculture subsidies commitments, where the focus had previously...

-ANI New Delhi/ Cuttack: Farmers in India's eastern region, prone for flash floods, are now shifting to flood-tolerant variety of rice, developed by Manila-based International Rice Research Institute, IRRI. The variety - Swarna-SUB1, is bread from a popular Indian variety of rice Swarna by upgrading it with SUB1, the gene for flood tolerance. Swarna was developed by Andhra Pradesh Agriculture University. The new variety, according to a report in the Indian Science Journal...

-The Business Standard   Agriculture ministry wants review of clamps on holdings; rural development ministry seeks centralisation of records With Narendra Modi set to take over as prime minister in the next few days, the department of agriculture is proposing a comprehensive review of land ceiling laws as a first major reform in the sector.   Land also figures in the to-do list of the rural development ministry. It has proposed centralisation of land records...