-Business Standard Export to Iran might hit a record high Lifting of global economic sanctions on Iran could, it is hoped in the trade, enable a new record for basmati rice export to that country from here in 2015-16. Iran is also expected to cut import duty on Indian basmati from 40 per cent now to 20 per cent from the new season, starting October. Our basmati export was a record 1.44 million...

THE controversy over Maggi instant noodles has once again highlighted the issues plaguing food safety in India. Not only does the issue raise critical questions about safe food production by multinational companies such as Nestle but it also foregrounds the institutional fault lines when it comes to ensuring food safety. Frontline spoke to Sunita Narain, who heads the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the organisation instrumental in initiating...

-IPSNews.net NEW DELHI: Chottey Lal, 43, a daily wage labourer at a construction site in NOIDA, a township in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is a beleaguered man. After a gruelling 12-hour daily shift at the dusty location, he and his wife Subha make barely enough to feed a family of seven. Nor is the couple ever able to procure the subsidized rations they are legally entitled to, under a...

-Business Standard Swadeshi Jagran Manch asked the Centre to come out with a comprehensive land use policy instead of a piecemeal approach to the issue The Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliated economic policy group, along with Communist Party of India (CPI) affiliated All India Kisan Sabha on Tuesday made common cause in criticising the land Bill brought by the Narendra Modi government. In its presentation to the parliamentary...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘Development not at the cost of food security’ After several farmers’ organisations, it is now the turn of agricultural scientists, representing various research institutions, to criticise the Land Acquisition Bill. On Monday, senior agricultural scientists told the joint Parliamentary panel, looking into the amendments to the 2013 legislation, that reducing cultivable land can pose a serious threat to the food security of the country. Representatives, including Vice-Chancellors of the Indian...