Despite a recovery, acreage of groundnut, sunflower and castorseed recorded a sharp decline this year due to low rainfall in major producing areas during the peak sowing season. The three major kharif oilseeds are sown for a month starting June 15 and harvested between October and December. Data collated by the ministry of agriculture showed the area under groundnut declined 28.37 per cent as on July 21. The sowing area under...

States are expected to take responsibility for this, but the Bill ignores the nutritional crisis altogether K V Thomas Minister for Food The inclusion of iron supplements, protein, dairy supplements and vegetables can be done gradually - this Bill is just the beginning The food security Bill will certainly ensure nutrition but it is the states that have to take steps for that. The draft Bill approved recently by the Group of Ministers is...

From next year, atta,bread,biscuits ,snacks and everything made from maida and sooji will become seriously more expensive. Even after a bumper crop, there just won't be enoughwheat for us. ET helps you join the dots. The trigger for wheat inflation that will hit each one of us is the Food Security Act, which kickstarts next year. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) will need substantially more wheat to supply three...

In a setback to the Election Commission (EC), its pilot poll conducted on Sunday to establish a paper trail for electronic voting machines (EVMs) reported significant errors. Preliminary results of the EC pilot poll indicated discrepancies between votes polled in EVMs and the paper trail, according to three people involved and familiar with the testing process. Two of them are EC officials who confirmed the mismatch, but did not give any...

Community initiative tackles perennial problem of groundwater salinity In a rare community-driven initiative, the residents of a nondescript village near Deeg in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan have solved the perennial problem of groundwater salinity by laying a one-km cement pipeline to get the Yamuna river waters from a feeder canal situated nearby. The small Madhera village had been facing difficulty in getting clean and pure water for both drinking and irrigation for...