-Livemint.com Large dairy farms are critical for the next stage of India's white revolution Nagara (Anand): Sunil Patel hardly looks like a dairy farmer in his loafers, sleek glasses and cotton trousers. As he guides me to his farm of 110 cows through the narrow lanes of Nagara, a small village around 60 km from India’s milk capital, Anand, I notice most of the houses have piped natural gas connections. Nagara, like...

-The Hindu Business Line Our pulses trade and output policies are made with the wrong ingredients The present spike in prices of pulses is a fallout of both structural and short-term factors. Years of flawed production and trade policies, along with the absence of technological breakthroughs to improve yields, have led to stagnation in output. The retail prices of pulses have galloped along at a faster rate ever since the fourth advance...

-The Hindu Business Line Crop insurance will make farming a safer vocation The plight of Punjab’s cotton farmers after a swarm of ‘whiteflies’ ravaged their crop is truly disquieting. In a knee-jerk response, Punjab has promised ₹640 crore for over two-third of the crop being destroyed, but on what basis, it is hard to tell. This highlights the absence of crop insurance in Punjab, as pointed out by a recent Crisil study....

-Business Standard India’s growth in agriculture and allied activities has struggled to reach the targeted four per cent average a year in the first three years of the 12th five-year Plan because of a host of factors. The below-average farm growth is widely expected to deepen the crisis in the farm sector. In an interview with Sanjeeb Mukherjee, newly-appointed member of NITI Aayog and eminent agriculture economist Ramesh Chand  said over-reliance...

-The Hindu 36 States asked to end research and capacity-building. The Urban Development Ministry has asked 36 States to terminate their research and capacity-building measures under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), a move that will roll back the achievements of the scheme launched by the UPA government and render it defunct. Under the JNNURM, the State governments established Reform and Performance Management Cells (RPMCs), a body of experts to guide...