-The Economic Times KOLKATA: Eastern and North Eastern states, which grapple with acute storage deficit, will get a priority in fund allocation for setting up warehouses, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard ) said. States with food deficits like Jammu and Kashmir will also receive a priority treatment. The government has directed Nabard to treat these states favourably to cut farm losses amid implementation of the world's biggest population feeding...

-Live Mint Difference between average spending in urban and rural areas declined by 0.6 percentage points between 2004-05 and 2011-12 The seven years between 2004-05 and 2011-12 have been among the most prosperous phases India has ever seen. What makes this phase unique is that the gains from high growth have been more evenly shared between rural and urban India than before. Real rural Consumption expenditure grew at an average annual pace...

-The Business Standard Changing aspirations and strong rural demand could explain why core inflation may not decline fast enough Recently, the Reserve Bank of India governor exuded confidence that the Indian economy will do fairly better in the current fiscal. While it is difficult to envisage a significant turnaround, we believe interpreting the recent inflation uptick may be the key to such optimism. We also think that inflation (both wholesale and retail)...

-World Resources Institute COPENHAGEN//WASHINGTON - The World Resources Institute (WRI) today announced the first step in designing a global standard for measuring food loss and waste. The forthcoming guidance, called the "Food Loss and Waste Protocol," will enable countries and companies to measure and monitor the food loss and waste that occur within their boundaries and value chains in a credible, practical, and consistent manner. The announcement was made at the Global...

Released two days before the World Food Day i.e. 16 October, the Global Hunger Index 2013 report paints a gloomy picture of India. Its score of fighting hunger has improved only marginally in the past two decades while many of its neighbors have moved up from strength to strength. (See full report below)   The report entitled: The Challenge of Hunger: Building Resilience to achieve Food and Nutrition Security says that India...