Jean Dreze and Aruna Roy, members of the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC) — governing body for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme — on Tuesday kept away from ‘MNREGS Sammelan 2010’ here, describing it as a “ceremonial function.” In their joint letter to Rural Development Minister C.P. Joshi, the social activists, who had played a crucial role in shaping the manual job guaranteeing law, said, “We see little...

Bacillus Thuringiensis Brinjal, popularly known as Bt brinjal, is at the centre of a major controversy in India. Bt brinjal, a genetically modified strain created by India's number one seeds company Mahyco in collaboration with American multinational Monsanto, claims to improve yields and help the agriculture sector. However, the debate over the safety of Bt brinjal continues with mixed views from scientists working for the government, farmers and environment activists. Environment activists says...

With a large number of people living on subsistence level of income, the government has to safeguard their interest by ensuring availability of food grains at an affordable price. Success of any policy or programme to this effect depends on growth in agriculture production and procurement of wheat and rice, the main staple foodgrains. Though the performance of agriculture has not been uniform throughout and its growth rate has varied...

India's annual food inflation based on wholesale prices rose to 17.4% for the week ended January 16 from 16.81% the week before, according to official statistics released on Thursday. Essential items continued to rule firm, with potatoes dearer by 57.56% over the past 52 weeks, pulses up 46.87%, and vegetables costlier by 10.5%. But prices of onions declined 1.69%. The limited data on the wholesale index released by the commerce...

At a time when other countries are cutting down ethanol admixing with vehicular fuel due to tightening supplies of alcohol, India, oddly enough, is doing the reverse. The Union government has forced the states to raise ethanol doping of petrol from 5 per cent to 10 per cent immediately and has set the target of hiking it further to 20 per cent by 2017, least realising that the sugar industry,...