-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...

-The Indian Express Because the GM question demands evidence-based policymaking, not corporate shills or NGO prejudices. Two RSS-affiliated groups, the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, seem to have successfully petitioned the environment minister to hold off field trials of genetically modified crops. Only a week ago, the statutory body for these decisions, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), had allowed farm trials of rice, mustard, cotton, chickpea and...

-Reuters NEW DELHI: With grain silos spilling over, exports on the rise and an avowed market champion for prime minister, India's threat to trash a global trade deal in the name of food security appears puzzling. But government officials say Prime Minister Narendra Modi is prepared to brazen out global outrage to seize a historic chance to build a rural power base with his defence of farm subsidies and to banish memories...

-Reuters NEW DELHI: India's reservoirs are depleting fast and monsoon rains need to pick up now if they are to have enough water to prevent a drop in output of major winter crops such as wheat and rapeseed that are sown from October, a senior government official said. Rains were 15 per cent below average in the week to July 16, an improvement from the previous week's shortfall of 41 per cent...

-The Hindu Business Line The primary mandate of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) acting under directions of Food Ministry is to service requirements of the public distribution system (PDS) in association with State Government Agencies (SGAs). But over the years, FCI has also been called upon to intervene in managing market prices, albeit with little success. FCI efficiently procures wheat, paddy/milled rice but faces odds while selling surplus grains in the...