Expressing dissatisfaction over the slow rate of stock movement from Haryana, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Thursday urged Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution K. V. Thomas to speed up the movement of wheat stock procured by various procurement agencies. An official spokesman said that Mr. Hooda met the Union Minister here. Prof. Thomas appreciated the procurement process in the State and said that Haryana was...

Ghulam Nabi Azad led Indian delegation to Moscow India is working towards framing a mental health policy India achieved a major success on the global platform by pushing for inclusion of mental health in the list of non-communicable diseases. India fought alone to get mental disorders included in the non-communicable diseases (NCDs) list at the just-concluded first Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Non-communicable Disease Control in Moscow. Mental health as a NCD...

To make storage space available for the fresh rabi harvest, the Union government has decided to allocate an additional 5 million tonnes of wheat and rice to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) population under the public Distribution system (PDS). The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, cleared the Food Ministry's proposal at a meeting on Monday. The additional foodgrains will be made available from June 1 over...

An annual meeting of Asian finance ministers and central bank governors in Hanoi is set to address the fate of 64 million people in the region on the brink of extreme poverty. They are the worst affected by soaring food prices, which have hit record highs in the first two months of this year. "The issue of food price inflation and food security will indeed be one of the key topics...

Endosulfan, a powerful 50-year-old insecticide sometimes called DDT’s “cousin,” was officially banned last week at an international pesticides meeting in Geneva. Partial exemptions were created for India, however; the chemical may be used on some crops there for up to 10 years. Many countries outlawed endosulfan long ago because it is dangerous to farmworkers, accumulates in the body, kills beneficial insects and persists in the environment. The United States is an...