-PTI he government today said out of the 60 million tonnes of foodgrains distributed in the country in 2010-11 though the Public Distribution System (PDS), only 0.061 lakh tonnes were reported to be damaged.  The total damage reported during 2010-11 was 0.061 lakh tonnes, out of the total 60 million tonnes distributed in the country in 2010-11, Minister of State for Foods and Public Distribution K V Thomas said in Rajya Sabha.  He...

-Bloomberg   World food pRices will drop this year as increase in unemployment in developing and developed countries slows growth in demand, the United Nations said.   “We have started to see a decline in food pRices,” Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, said at a conference in Hanoi on Thursday. World economic expansion will slow to 3.3% this year from 3.8% in 2011, according to the International...

In this year's budget, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has essentially tried to consolidate the gains from the initiatives he had launched during the previous two budgets. Thus, in agriculture there is no new initiative except increasing the target for agricultural credit to Rs.5,75,000 crore during 2012-13. This represents an increase of over Rs.1,00,000 crore from last year. The interest rate of four per cent recommended by the National Commission...

Food subsidy allocation in the budget for 2012-13 is way short of what is required for the implementation of the proposed National Food Security Act, despite a categorical assurance by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the government would “fully provide” food subsidy to administer UPA's flagship legislation. In fact, the regular food subsidy requirement has been cut. While declaring that the government proposed to phase out subsidies in fertilizer and petroleum...

The common man, whose concerns were at the heart of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance’s two successful election campaigns, doesn’t seem to be the focus of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s budget. Experts and political analysts say the aam admi doesn’t appear to be the dominant concern anymore, prompting speculation about Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi’s role. She has thus far been setting the UPA’s social agenda through the National Advisory Council...