-The Hindu Business Line Good rain, increased acreage and hike in minimum support prices likely to cool prices The Modi government has been struggling over the last two years to contain the unprecedented rise in the prices of pulses, the second-most important food item after cereals. In the interim, prices of tur have more than doubled, and near-doubled in the case of urad and chana. WPI prices for pulses increased 35.76 per...

-The Indian Express Farmers can install solar panels on their fields that can generate income in addition to regular crop agriculture. Of its several new initiatives, the Narendra Modi government has set out at least two very ambitious targets, which are also quantifiable. One is achieving 100 giga-watts (GW) of solar power generation capacity by the year 2022. The other is doubling farmers’ income — presumably in real terms — also by 2022,...

-The Indian Express Within overall food inflation, the price of pulses, fats and vegetables rose quicker than that of cereals. The result is that fewer people can buy these foods. As India’s 70th year of Independence begins, widespread progress is evident, but in rural India, where 833 million Indians (70 per cent) live, people are consuming fewer nutrients than are required to stay healthy, according to a National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Brazil has offered to do "captive farming" of pulses to meet the growing demand in India. Responding to the offer, the consumer affairs ministry is now preparing a detailed proposal. Consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan said that the offer came when he met ministers from Brazil during his visit to the the country. "They are ready to grow pulses for us. We need to provide...

-Frontline Medecins Sans Frontieres warns that the free or regional trade agreements that are being negotiated, which seek to strengthen current patent regimes, are a potential threat to the developing world’s access to life-saving drugs, which it sources mostly from India. WHEN NELSON MANDELA’S GOVERNMENT passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act in 1997 to make medicines more accessible to the poor, 39 big pharmaceutical companies filed law suits in...