-Business Standard Govt takes stock of pulses situation in wake of weak rains The Cabinet might discuss increasing the minimum support price (MSP) of kharif crop for the 2015-16 season at a meeting expected to be held on Wednesday. Officials said the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) had recommended Rs 50 a quintal increase in paddy MSP for the 2015-16 season and the agriculture ministry favoured this. But a higher increase of...

-The Financial Express The Narendra Modi government has pledged to employ all machinery at its disposal to deal with a second straight year of deficient monsoon. The Narendra Modi government has pledged to employ all machinery at its disposal to deal with a second straight year of deficient monsoon and denied an impending distress in the vulnerable pockets of the country, but a dispassionate look at the ground situation would show there...

-Outlook Pulses are falling off the poor man’s plate. Price rise may hit the middle class next. Pulses—all-important as a source of protein—are set to be spoilers this year in the government’s endeavour to keep a check on food inflation. Already, over the last nine months, the prices of some pulses have jumped 64 per cent in major cities. This is because of below-normal monsoon last year, compounded by untimely rain and...

-Livemint.com The govt is taking steps to check rising prices of pulses and may import more to meet domestic demand, says minister New Delhi: The Union government is taking steps to minimize the impact of a likely deficit monsoon on agricultural production and the overall economy, farm minister Radha Mohan Singh said on Wednesday. “We are prepared with contingency plans for 580 districts and are reviewing these on a daily basis. We...

-Hindustan Times Policy makers have no control over fickle weather whims and complex forecasts. Regardless of the eventual course and quality of summer rains brought on by drafts of breeze that stream 8,000 km from the southern Pacific, the early predictions did give an early heads up of what was likely in the next few months. Yet, every drought year, India’s response to deal with scanty summer rains has been knee-jerk, marked...