-Newsclick.in Food grain availability for Indians has increased by just 3.3% since 1961. On this 72nd Independence Day of our India, while there will be the usual speeches and festivities, spare a thought to this shocking bit of news: average availability of food grains for every Indian has increased by 3.3% since 1961. Food grains includes wheat, rice, other cereals and pulses. Among these, per person availability of pulses has actually declined...

-The Hindu Business Line By converting a necessity into a virtue, the government has decided to release the large inventory of procured pulses to different States at a discounted rate for utilisation in various welfare programs. Necessity because the stocks continue to occupy scarce warehousing space and incur huge carrying costs. Also, the Centre thinks, warehousing space may be needed during the upcoming kharif harvest less than six weeks away; and of course,...

-The Hindu Business Line Farmers want Govt to begin purchasing immediately Bengaluru: As the new kharif moong (green gram) hits the markets in North Karnataka, prices of the pulses crop are trading lower at around Rs.5,100 a quintal, much lower than the minimum support price of Rs.6,975 announced by the Centre. In fact, the prevailing prices in the State are also lower than last year’s support price of Rs.5,575/quintal, growers said, while demanding...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Raising farm income could well be the agenda for 2019 general elections and well aware of this is the Narendra Modi government, which is leaving no stone unturned to lure this vote bank. Navigating this agenda for the government is Radha Mohan Singh, Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. Aware of the challenges of the price sensitive market, Singh said, “agriculture markets cannot be...

The Right to Food Campaign Jharkhand welcomes the Jharkhand Government’s decision to discontinue the “DBT for food subsidy” experiment in Nagri. It is unfortunate, however, that it took almost a year of popular protests for the government to arrive at this decision. The DBT pilot caused enormous hardship to the people of Nagri, especially vulnerable groups such as single women and the elderly. Protests began within days of the experiment being...