-Livemint.com The nine-member cotton seed price control committee has recommended a maximum sale price of Rs.800 for a 450g packet of Bollgard II Bt cotton seeds New Delhi: A government panel on genetically modified Bt cotton has recommended a steep reduction in royalty fees payable to technology companies, and lower seed prices. If accepted, the recommendations will benefit nearly 8 million cotton farmers in India, but may raise concerns about how India...

-Indo-Asian News Service New Delhi: The government today said it has launched two important schemes to increase crop yield in rain-fed areas, including India's north eastern states. "To increase crop yields in the rain-fed areas, which account for nearly 55 per cent of the country's arable land, organic farming is being promoted. Towards this end, the government has launched two important schemes which are Parmparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana and Organic Value...

-TheHansIndia.com * Solar-powered water pumping solution comes as a boon to meet irrigation and drinking water needs of rural population, especially in power-deficit regions. * The installation of pumpsets reduces dependence on power and expenditure on bills Kakinada: As part of the government’s target to set up solar agricultural pump sets across the State to reduce the grid power consumption by farmers, officials of the New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra...

-The Asian Age The Economic Survey of 2015-2016 is a lovely document which goes into great detail on what is wrong with India on the economic front and offers good workable solutions to solve these problems. One of the points that the survey makes is regarding Indian agriculture becoming cereal-centric. The reason for this lies in the fact that the government procures rice and wheat from farmers at the minimum support price...

-The Indian Express The budget recognises the crisis in rural India, but allocations do not match the talk In India now, there appears to be an inverse relationship between the time finance ministers spend talking about a particular issue in their budget speeches and the amount of money they actually allocate to deal with it. This was true of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s budget speeches, but incumbent FM Arun Jaitley...