-The Financial Express Thanks to normal monsoon rains last year after two consecutive years of ‘deficient’ rainfall, India’s foodgrain production is estimated to touch an all-time high of 273.38 million tonne (MT) in the 2016-17 crop year (July-June), which is 8.7% more than the previous year. The previous record output was 265.04 MT in 2013-14. According to the third advance estimate released on Tuesday by agriculture ministry, the output of rice, wheat,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The World Health Organisation has announced a plan to approve generic versions of two expensive bio-therapeutic anti-cancer molecules in an effort to make them available to low and middle-income countries. It said it would invite manufacturers to submit applications for pre-qualification of biologically similar versions of rituximab, used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and trastuzumab, used to treat breast cancer. The pre-qualification process is a mechanism...

-Livemint.com Abject poverty, high levels of debt, and crop failures among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to a study commissioned by agriculture ministry New Delhi: Abject poverty, high levels of indebtedness, crop failures and pressure to repay loans are among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to the preliminary findings of a study commissioned by the Union agriculture ministry. The broad findings of the study conducted by the Institute for...

-VillageSquare.in The constant swing in the prices of tur dal in Telangana from one year to the next and tardy implementation of the government’s procurement mechanism have made life tough for thousands of subsistence farmers in Kodangal and Husnabad Husnabad and Kodangal are just 110 km from the cyber city of Hyderabad. In the last week of March, it was a beginning of a long dry spell, with temperatures hovering around the...

-The Indian Express State agriculture minister Gaurishankar Bisen made purported statement in closed-door govt meet Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Agriculture Minister Gaurishankar Bisen has reportedly said in a closed-door government meeting that 90 per cent of the wheat procured for distribution in his state through the PDS system is diverted illegally. The statement attributed to Bisen, who refused to elaborate on it later, comes at a time when there is talk about...