-The Financial Express Likely to give bonus of up to Rs 425 per quintal on pulses In a bid to boost production of pulses and oilseeds, the government is likely to announce 5 to 10% hike in minimum support price (MSP) for the rabi crops, including wheat, barley, gram, masur and mustard, for the 2016-17 season besides a bonus on pulses in the range of Rs 250 to Rs 425 per quintal. Sources...

-Hindustan Times Chandigarh: Thanks mainly to the largesse of 10,000 tubewells and mass switch from whitefly-shadowed cotton, Punjab’s paddy yield is going to be an all-time high of 186-lakh tonnes. What could be worse. The experts are worried that this non-native crop may bring “momentary respite” to farmers but “spell doom for Punjab”. Paddy — never grown over 30-lakh hectares or 94-lakh acres before — has eaten into the area of other...

-The Indian Express Govt must learn from mistakes in onions and potatoes, agriculture should be spared of bearing the burden of its inflation targeting. Last week, Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a 5% subsidy on onion exports in the form of transferable duty credit scrips that can be used to pay customs, excise or service tax. On top of it, the Maharashtra government extended a Rs 100 per quintal grant to...

-The Indian Express Government has the opportunity to rein in food inflation on a sustainable basis. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi counted his government’s achievements. Bringing down inflation from double digits to below six per cent was emphatically mentioned as one that brought relief to the aam aadmi. Without doubt, we witnessed moderation in the overall consumer price index (CPI) and wholesale price index (WPI) levels in the past...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...