-The Business Standard Cabinet secretary asks WTO to not put issue on backburner but address it up front Laying down India's stand on World Trade Organisation negotiations, cabinet secretary Ajit Seth on Thursday said the country's food security concerns cannot be relegated to the back-burner, but should be addressed up front. "Addressing the food security concerns is important, as India still has 190 million hungry people," Seth said at an event organised...

-Outlook Geneva: With India sticking to its tough stand, efforts to break the impasse in the WTO on trade facilitation agreement and food security issues today proved futile and further consultations will continue over the week. The General Council of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which met after a gap of over two months, could not make much headway. "I will be holding a series of meetings in a range of different configurations....

-The Hindu Low output and land fragmentation are critical issues, says survey Tamil Nadu: The writing on the wall for Tamil Nadu in agriculture is pretty clear, though the State's grain production during 2013-14 was good. The latest Economic Appraisal of the government has shown that Tamil Nadu needs out-of-the-box policies to tackle agriculture production and its impact on food inflation. The State did well in 2013-14 to bounce back from a nightmare drought...

-The Business Standard In July, India had clarified it wouldn't ratify a trade facilitation agreement until a permanent solution on food security was arrived at A day before the World Trade Organization (WTO)'s trade negotiations committee meets in Geneva, India on Wednesday said during the negotiations, it would stick to its stand on food security. Speaking to reporters here, Commerce & Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, "Our position remains intact...we will underline the...

-The Indian Express The four-month monsoon season ended last week leaving a deficit of 12 per cent. The authorities have called it a below-normal monsoon and the worst in the past five years, but skim the data and the picture seems even more sobering. Nearly one-third of the 36 met divisions in the country have received deficient rainfall, with Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh - which are major agriculture regions -...