The Planning Commission, in a letter to the Punjab government, has expressed “serious concern” about the “rapidly deteriorating situation regarding groundwater” in Punjab, and asked the state to reconsider its policy of free power to farmers, which “is contributing to over drawal” of groundwater. These are unquestionably questions we should be asking. Of course, these questions are embedded in a larger set of issues — the unreformed nature of electricity...

Governments of cotton growing states have spiked proposals by companies to increase prices for genetically modified (Bt) cotton seeds. Makers of Bt seed have asked for a rise in the price they could charge for a 40-seed packet of the BG1 variety to Rs 850 (from Rs 650 now) and for the BG2 variety to Rs 1,050 (up from Rs 750), as input and labour costs had gone up by 35...

The reconstructed National Advisory Council (NAC), headed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, will consider the food security Bill as its first priority when it meets again next month. At its first meeting held here today, Gandhi’s team decided to meet again on July 1 to discuss the Bill and finalise its recommendations. NAC has also decided to revisit the Communal Violence (prevention) Bill, which has been lying with the...

The Food Outlook of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that came out in June, 2010 has predicted that world cereal production would be reaching a record level of 2279.5 million tonnes in 2010-2011, which would be an increase of 1.2 percent over last year’s global production of 2253.1 million tonnes. As a result, it has been predicted that there would be a modest increase in world trade in cereal...

The India growth story is enviable. Despite plaguing problems, India has emerged stronger and resilient to the global crisis so far. India is expected to be the world's fastest growing economy by 2018, according to Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research arm of the Economist magazine. India, the second largest growing economy will overtake China as the fastest growing major economy with an average of eight per cent in the...