-The Hindu   Obesity among children due to rampant consumption of junk food has reached epidemic proportions. With India already in the grip of this dangerous global trend, the government needs to remove its blinkers on the processed food industry One of the first declarations of the newly elected government in June was a proposal to ban unhealthy or junk food (defined as food high on fat, sugar and salt) in school...

-Reuters NEW DELHI: With grain silos spilling over, exports on the rise and an avowed market champion for prime minister, India's threat to trash a global trade deal in the name of food security appears puzzling. But government officials say Prime Minister Narendra Modi is prepared to brazen out global outrage to seize a historic chance to build a rural power base with his defence of farm subsidies and to banish memories...

-The Telegraph Tura: The Meghalaya government is working out modalities to declare horticulture and agriculture yields as "organic certified". Farmers are being encouraged in organic production and the government is assisting in the certification process. Director of the horticulture department Daniel Ingty told The Telegraph, "Nearly 90 per cent farms in Meghalaya are organic by tradition. However, these are yet to be certified. The government has embarked an ambitious programme on mission organic...

-The Times of India VISAKHAPATNAM: Among the many challenges before them, bringing down the number of farmer suicides might prove to be one of the toughest for the new governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. As per the national crime records bureau ( NCRB) data, unified Andhra Pradesh was only second to Maharashtra in terms of suicides by self-employed persons in agriculture. While Maharashtra had witnessed around 3,146 deaths in 2013, it...

-The Hindustan Times Geneva/ New Delhi: India told the World Trade Organisation on Friday it will only back a worldwide reform of customs rules - the so-called trade facilitation agreement (TFA) - if its demands on rules for government-driven food procurement and welfare schemes are implemented in the same timeframe. "India is of the view that the TFA must be implemented only as part of a single undertaking including the permanent solution...