Commission agents to start procuring for Central agency from today Bowing to the pressure exerted by the powerful lobby of commission agents, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has decided to withdraw its directive to make direct payment to farmers in punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. Union Agriculture and Food Minister Sharad Pawar, who was in Chandigarh on Monday, had a meeting with punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Food and...

Farmers in Bagli village of Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh will organise a public hearing on Oct 8 on the harmful impact of chemical fertilizers on soil. Several agriculture experts, government officials, politicians and representatives of civil society are expected to attend the hearing. The public hearing is part of the 'Living Soils' campaign launched by Greenpeace India to highlight soil health and its relevance to food security. 'The hearing will review the...

Court ordered Haryana govt to return panchayat land sold to DLF in Gurgaon The judgment by the punjab and Haryana High Court slamming the Haryana government for “acting with bias and malice to show favour to M/s DLF” and ordering it to return to villagers the19 acres of prime land in Nathupur village acquired on a ‘false pretext’ has cheered up the man who led this legal battle. Petitioner Meer Singh,...

The decision to defer cotton export registration by one month – from October 1 to November 1 – may help the textile companies in the short term because of sufficient availability, but there are concerns on how long that would last. Arrivals of cotton are uncertain across India with farmers apprehensive about the yield due to inclement weather. The early varieties of cotton from punjab and Haryana have also been affected...

Flaying the punjab government for its “poor performance in the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) and other welfare schemes, Union Minister for Rural Development and Panchayats P C Joshi said: “By doing so, the punjab government is denying its poor their due.” In Ludhiana to preside over a meeting of the district-level vigilance and monitoring committee, Joshi said: “punjab fares even lower than my district, Bhilwara,...