-The Business Standard Says increase in the subsidised foodgrain allocation will put pressure on the food subsidy bill Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday said the government has no plans to raise subsidised foodgrain allocations under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from 5 kg to 7 kg a person a month. Under the Act, each eligible person gets 5 kg of rice at Rs 5 a kg or wheat at...

-The Business Standard WTO reconvenes to re-examine issue of agriculture subsidies, numbers alone suggest that India has a strong case for declining to sign WTO's TFA The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is reconvening in the last week of September to examine the issue of agricultural subsidies against the backdrop of India's refusal to become a signatory to the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) at Bali. Since then, a lot of water has flowed...

-Down to Earth Asia houses 526 million of the 805 million chronically undernourished people in the world The good news is that the world today is producing enough to support the projected population of nine billion people by 2050. But the bad news is that still 805 million people-or one in every nine people-are hungry in the world, says a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The risk of losing room to raise the minimum support price for rice possibly prompted India's hard stand at the WTO in July, which led to the collapse of trade talks. The farm subsidy notification made by India at the WTO earlier this week shows that the subsidy to rice risks exceeding the WTO permissible limit. If there is no relief on the procurement issue, the government...

-PTI NEW DELHI: India's farm subsidies are well below the WTO's cap of 10 per cent and the developed world should move ahead with finding a permanent solution for stock piling of grains for food security purposes, an official said. According to a WTO filing, India has given a total farm subsidy of $56 billion, of which trade distorting subsidy amounts to only $13.8 billion for 23 commodities, including rice and wheat. Explaining...