Pawar’s Report Card The Negatives     Per capita availability of cereals and pulses has fallen in last eight years     No improvement in irrigation, 60% of agriculture still dependent on monsoons     Farmers growing cereals, sugarcane, oilseeds and pulses assured higher MSP, but majority don't benefit     Production up, but not productivity. Farmer suicides are on the rise.     Poor market advisory on exports being misused to buy cheaply from farmers and make profits overseas     Pawar...

The same full page appeared twice in three years, the first time as news, the second time as an advertisement “Not a single person from the two villages has committed suicide.” Three and a half years ago, at a time when the controversy over the use of genetically modified seeds was raging across India, a newspaper story painted a heartening picture of the technology's success. “There are no suicides here and people...

-The Telegraph The wheat has to be saved, so joust over jute. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee today assured Opposition leaders he had asked Bengal to increase production of jute bags after shortage of facilities to store this year’s bumper wheat crop rocked the Lok Sabha. Mukherjee said he had spoken to Bengal industries minister Partha Chatterjee and urged him to ensure uninterrupted production to ensure that the supply of jute sacks increased by...

When a corporate executive recently landed in the emergency ward of Hiranandani Hospital in Powai with palpitations, doctors first checked his heart. When tests ruled out any cardiac problem, they found an unlikely culprit-too many cups of green tea. "After talking to him, we realized he had had over a dozen cups of green tea within the span of a few hours,'' said cardiologist Ganesh Kumar. Some brands of green tea...

Consumers may have to pay substantially more for pulses, oilseed, and rice in the coming months if the government accepts the recommendations of an expert panel to increase farm-gate price of these commodities by up to 30%, further stoking food inflation. The Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), under the ministry of agriculture, has recommended a 25% rise in the floor price of cotton, 16% rise in paddy, 30% rise...