Barring a brief tiff with media persons near the sit-in site in Bharatpur, situation during the ongoing Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan remained under control, police said on Thursday. There is no report of protest or further blockade from anywhere in the state, even as Gujjars continued to squat on the Delhi-Mumbai rail tracks on the fourth consecutive day demanding five per cent reservation, they said. Vehicular traffic is plying normally...

FAO has warned that 2011 may witness a global food crisis. Proactive action is needed to meet the challenge of price volatility, chronic hunger, Agrarian despair and climate change. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has alerted developing countries about possible steep rises in food prices during 2011, if steps are not taken immediately to increase significantly the production of major food crops. According to FAO, “with...

As part of the ongoing Northeast Agri Expo 2010, a workshop on the topic ‘Food Security vis-À-vis Climate Change’, was held at the Agri Expo site, Dimapur, with Additional Secretary and Deputy Team Leader, NEPED, Nagaland, Raj Verma as the Chairman. Dr. S.V. Ngachan, Director ICAR Research complex for NEH Region, Umiam Meghalaya, also the co-chairman of the session, dwelt at length on climate proofing of Agriculture in North East India,...

In a jaw-dropping move, the Uttar Pradesh government has converted 2,367 sq km of the countryside along the Yamuna Expressway, connecting Greater Noida with Agra , into urban land. In a country where policy to create new towns has not ventured beyond the 50 sq km allowed as the maximum area of a Special Economic Zone, this is welcome. But not so, the manner in which the changed land-use is going...

From the time a farmer in India harvests his produce to the time it lands on your plate, farm products go through several layers of middlemen, wholesalers, cold chains and other intermediaries, which push its price up by many notches. The end result: growers get paid less and consumers pay more. The stranglehold that the government has over agriculture produce marketing in India has given rise to abject inefficiencies, lack...