-Frontline.in In the latest Global Hunger Index, India is bracketed in the category of countries where hunger levels are “serious”. But the policy responses on hunger and malnutrition in the country have been inadequate and faulty. In the second week of October, a few media reports in India highlighted significant data pertaining to global hunger. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) had released its Global Hunger Index (GHI), rating 118...

-The Indian Express On Independence Day, we salute our freedom fighters. We also remember Lal Bahadur Shastri who gave us the slogan, jai jawan, jai kisan.   PM Modi needs to move from slogans to action to transform agriculture.   Atal Bihari Vajpayee expanded the slogan to jai jawan, jai kisan, jai vigyan. The present government has an array of slogans for the farmers. Prime Minister Modi has coined so many — swacchh bharat,...

-The Hindu Business Line The Government has several short and long-term strategies to achieve self-sufficiency Who can deny that pulses are at the core of the average Indian diet? Therefore, the NDA government’s multi-pronged short-term and long-term strategies to meet the growing consumption of pulses in the country — from importing to increasing production through new technologies, and making cultivation attractive to farmers — is to be welcomed. In fact, pulses play...

-The Hindu The Maharashtra government’s decision to promulgate an ordinance this week to exempt farmers from having to mandatorily sell their fruit and vegetable crop at mandis governed by a 1963 law on marketing farm produce, is a bold and laudable step. That Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has stood his ground against the powerful lobby of middlemen, who shut shop in protest, is even more commendable. The problem with the present...

-DNA To add value to the ailing farming sector in Maharashtra, which is reeling under successive droughts, agrarian distress and a negative growth rate, the state government is working on an agro-industrial policy. "We are working on an agro-industrial policy. It will look at granting incentives to agro-industries like food processing units, which will help create value chains for farmers and set up facilities like cold storages. The policy will also grant...