-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Women and Child Development ministry has written to all states and union territories that there isn't enough evidence to support the use of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic foods (RUTF) for the management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM). This is a blow to the multi-crore complex of international NGOs who push packaged food as a strategy to address severe malnutrition and companies that produce them. The WCD letter pointed...

-Livemint.com Thomas Piketty’s estimates of inequality in India appear exaggerated on close scrutiny but the issue he raises is an Important one Three years after writing a best-selling book on the growing problem of inequality in the Western world, the French economist Thomas Piketty has turned his attention to inequality in the developing world. In a recent research paper co-authored with Lucas Chancel of the Paris School of Economics, Piketty estimates that...

-NDTV The Modi government is finally getting some flak, as it should, for its confused economic policies, epitomised by the demonetisation blunder last year. Despite relatively favourable circumstances (including good monsoons and a decline in international fuel prices), the rate of economic growth is declining quarter after quarter. For manufacturing, it is even close to zero, according to the latest estimates. Statistics related to employment and wages are even more worrying....

-The Indian Express Prices crashed last year because there was a glut in Imports during a year of record production. Government has not corrected the policy snags that led to this anomaly. Pulses are an interesting and unique commodity group in the Indian agri-food space. The country ranks first not only in their production and consumption, but also their Import. Domestic absorption in recent years (2012-13 to 2015-16) has hovered between 21...

-Hindustan Times Of the affected states are also those announced farm loan waivers just months ago to bail out beleaguered farming community. With the southwest monsoon season about to end in less than three weeks’ time, the government’s drought warning system predicts there could be a drought in 225 districts across “17 agriculturally Important states of India,” putting further strain on distressed agriculture sector. According to the government’s National Agriculture and Drought...