Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar recently alleged that Monsanto, the Union environment ministry’s genetic engineering approval committee (GEAC) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had colluded to start trials of genetically modified maize in Bihar before clearance from the environment ministry and the state government. The charge is significant: Nitish says ICAR’s experimental farms in Bihar did not maintain the stipulated “isolation distance” from normal farmland, meant to...

“Budget is more than a document of income and expenditure. People expect it to tackle the twin problems of poverty and social injustice while ensuring better income and standard of living.” Country’s first woman Finance Minister of any state government, Upinderjit Kaur, said this while presenting her first budget and last of the present Akali-BJP government on Monday. With the state slated to go to polls early next year, the Rs...

Two villages in Uttar Pradesh have reversed the trend of migration by digging six kilometres of channels to bring water to drought-hit farms Call it the fallout of seven years of severe drought or government inaction, a silent revolution is brewing in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Communities are getting united and digging channels to bring water from government canals to their fields. Some are volunteering labour, while those belonging to...

The National Advisory Council (NAC) has now sketched out the “contours of a national food security bill”. The goal is worthy: “Protecting all children, women and men from hunger and food deprivation.” To some, the bill might appear utopian. The truth is worse. The bill reminds us of John Stuart Mill’s denunciation of a government policy of his day: “What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be...

Forty years ago Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan helped rescue the world from growing famine and a deepening gloom over the future of food supplies. Today, public policy projects itself as pro-farmer but it does it half-heartedly, complains Swaminathan. M S Swaminathan, member of the National Advisory Council and father of the Green Revolution says the government's allocation for agriculture is insignificant. Doesn't the Union Budget reflect a new focus on agriculture?...