The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed a state-run company to compensate farmers for supplying defective seeds to them. The court rejected the plea of National Seeds Corporation that it was not liable to pay compensation as it was governed by the provisions of the Seeds Act 1966 and not the consumer Protection Act 1986. A bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly said there is nothing in Seeds Act that...

-The Deccan Chronicle   India needs to have a proper set of protocols and a credible regulatory mechanism to address issues related to genetically modified crops, according to Abhijit Sen, member of the Planning Commission. Mr Sen was addressing a gathering at the inaugural day of the two-day international seminar on ‘Biotechnology in Indian agriculture: performance, potential and concerns’ here on Wednesday. He said that the attempt to introduce Bt brinjal failed because...

Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar, India’s biggest rural retail chain by sales, which operates 230 stores across eight states and had seen good growth in the past two years, said it had seen a fall in rural demand in the past two to three months. A drop in prices of potatoes, onions and some other vegetables, leading to low realisation for farmers, and an increase in cost of fertiliser, are reasons for these...

With its politically crucial food security agenda facing time-consuming scrutiny by a parliamentary panel, the government is considering the option of rolling out key elements of the programme through an executive decision that can be later subsumed by an act of Parliament. Concerned the bill that negotiated divides within the government and involved discussions with the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council might be delayed till later this year, the Centre could...

After milk, salt - another most common food item - is under the Food Safety Standards Authority of India's (FSSAI) scanner. The FSSAI is collecting salt samples from across metros to check iodine levels. The study aims to find out how much iodine is finally available in the salt when it is being sold to consumers. "We want to see how much iodine is being consumed through salt by consumers. The study...