-PTI Jaipur: The Centre has given six months' more time to the states for rolling out the National Food Security Act (NFSA), Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Friday. The deadline, which has already been extended twice for implementing the food law, was ending on April 4. Only 11 states and Union Territories have so far implemented the National Food Security Act, which was passed by Parliament in September 2013. "The central...

-The Indian Express Bhubaneshwar: Despite three central PSUs backing out at the last moment from Orissa government's Rs 5-a-meal Aahar scheme, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday launched the scheme for simultaneously at Bhubaneswar and Rourkela. "The new Aahar Yojana is an excellent scheme to help poor people in the city. This is an excellent proof of our initiative for the poor," said Naveen, after pouring out steaming rice on to the...

-Frontline Outcomes of the patterns of growth induced by neoliberal economic reforms have increased the disproportionality between agricultural and non-agricultural growth, and with costs rising and prices not keeping pace, agriculture is becoming increasingly unviable. FARMERS across northern and central India-in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and elsewhere-are distressed. Unseasonal rains have damaged their standing crop and help from the government has been meagre and slow in coming. This, however, is...

-Frontline   The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...

-The Hindu With the Land Acquisition Bill in the limelight, nobody is talking about the real reforms that farmers need. A major survey finds that almost half the respondents don't want to continue with agriculture. The unseasonal rains over the last few weeks have resulted in enormous loss of crop output across many States of North India. This has shifted attention from the issue of land acquisition to other important problems faced...