-DNA The government's lack of focus on agriculture shows its lopsided priorities. In the coming months, about 1.5 crore farmers who quit agriculture in the past seven years, are likely to trudge back into the villages. In normal circumstances such a massive reverse migration - from the cities back to the villages - would have been a sign of inclusive growth. But economists are taking this U-turn as a sign of...

-The Financial Express India's grain output has risen substantially in recent years. India's grain output has risen substantially in recent years, taking the country to the league of the world's largest producers of rice, wheat and horticultural crops thanks to the use of diverse seed varieties, among other things. And productivity at Indian farms could increase further in coming years thanks to a centrally managed gene bank that would help multiply seed...

-The Indian Express Farmers are simply not among those benefiting from the higher prices of their produce. While a fall in headline inflation numbers will ensure some breathing space for embattled policy makers, the sharp surge in food inflation to a 41-month high of close to 20 per cent in November hides an even more disturbing fact - that despite the consistent spike in the year-on-year agri price levels at the...

-The New Indian Express   Most people would have been shocked to read the year-end report that India has been ranked 63rd, much below countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), a yardstick used by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to comprehensively measure global hunger. The index is calculated as an average of three indices-undernourishment, underweight children and low child mortality rate-and is measured on a...

-The Hindustan Times Misunderstandings about the World Trade Organization (WTO) are pervasive. The media coverage of the recent WTO meetings at Bali has added to the confusion. The bone of contention was the government procurement of the food grains in India under the National Food Security Act. The final outcome is a stopgap arrangement that has bought the Indian government some time; most importantly, it does not have to undertake any...