While Governor M K Narayanan has also put the weight of his office behind the growing concern over farmer suicides in West Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee government seems determined to play these down. In Burdwan, the state’s rice bowl, where 18 of the 27 deaths have been reported in the past four months, the district administration has been approaching families of victims for written statements saying the suicides had nothing to...

Downplaying the impact of drought in three states on national food production, agriculture and cooperation secretary Prabeer Kumar Basu says the number of people dependent on agriculture has to come down for rural incomes to rise.  "We have sent our team for an assessment of the situation. None of this will affect overall production because it will be compensated by the rest of India where crop conditions are excellent. We will...

-The Telegraph   The cabinet today unlocked the retail market for foreign direct investment, braving the Trinamul Congress’s objections but assuring Mamata Banerjee earlier in the day that state governments would have enough leeway to protect the interests of farmers. The most significant of today’s decisions is the clearance to 51 per cent foreign investment in multi-brand retail, which will allow the entry of giants that are already household names in a country...

An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of...

Jharkhand has produced more rice than it needs this season, thanks to the monsoon bounty after three consecutive years of drought, enabling the state to set up procurement centres in all 24 districts for the first time. Till now dependent on Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh for its annual requirement of around 20 lakh tonne of par boiled, or usna, rice, Jharkhand is likely to log a bumper harvest of 35-37...