-The Telegraph Kolkata: Seedbeds are not yet ready in vast stretches of Bengal's rice bowl because of poor rainfall, raising the prospect of a slump in production and showing up the inability of catchy slogans alone in making farming less of a gamble in the monsoon. Rainfall in the four major rice-producing districts of Bengal till Monday was around 50 per cent less than the normal average, officials in the agriculture department...

-The Business Standard Much before the unfortunate incident in Bihar took place, that claimed the lives of 23 children after consuming the mid day meal at their school, WB govt had asked 6 institutions to review the MDM program Kolkata: Much before the tragic incident took place in Bihar school that claimed 23 children's lives after consuming the mid day meal in school, the West Bengal the government had asked six...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: If cronyism and callousness led to the Bihar midday meal tragedy earlier this month, Jharkhand is staring at a credit crisis that is barely able to put food on plates in schools and anganwadis. Jharkhand's multi-crore food-for-children schemes - midday meal for schools and supplementary nutrition for anganwadis - are starved of funds and limping on credit, a survey conducted by the state adviser to the commissioner of Supreme...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: Assam will implement the UPA government's National Food Security scheme from November 19, chief minister Tarun Gogoi said today. The much-hyped National Food Security Ordinance, which is expected to be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament, will ensure access to quality food by all people in the country, especially those in the BPL category. Gogoi told reporters here that a group of ministers (GoM) has already been constituted to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Manmohan Singh-led UPA government can finally grab an official statistic to burnish its aam aadmi credentials. The percentage of people living below the poverty line has fallen to 21.9 per cent of the population in 2011-12 from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 - the year that the Congress-led UPA stormed to power. The percentage of people below the poverty line has been estimated at 25.7 per cent in...