-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Economic Survey 2013-14 released in New Delhi today has highlighted several challenges and reforms required in the agriculture sector. The Economic Survey states that as a concomitant of growth, the share of agriculture and allied sector in gross domestic product (GDP) declined to 15.2% during the Eleventh Plan and further to 13.9% in 2013-14 (provisional estimates-PE). While it still accounts for about 54.6% of...

-The Indian Express Modi government's potato policy will prove counter-productive. Onions and potatoes take centre-stage again. Having secured a mandate based on people's unhappiness with continuously high and painful food inflation, the government's inability to control prices is, understandably, sending shivers down the BJP's spine. Fulfilling the aspirations of urban voters and winning over a thoroughly exacting Delhi electorate, where re-elections are due, are essential to the BJP's game plan to succeed....

-The Tribune The community has to pay the cost of environmental degradation if sustainable agricultural practices are not followed. Food can also be produced by in-built provisions for ecological services. For this, sustainability issues have to be addressed with policy support. An ecosystem is a dynamic, complex, functional unit of diverse living organisms, physical environment and humans are its integral part. The wellbeing of mankind depends upon food, water, fibre, medicine, flood...

-The Hindu Business Line   Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (The more things change the more they remain the same ): A French proverb. In its earnest to tackle rising food inflation the new Government has taken a welcome initiative to delist fruits/ vegetables including onions (FVO) from the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act, while all other measures are as usual - short term of political expediency, repeated several...

-The Hindu   Salt workers toil under inhuman conditions to create the ingredient that converts a tasteless lump of calories into consumable tasty food Salt has played an iconic role in our freedom struggle, symbolised by the great salt satyagraha of 1933, led by Mahatma Gandhi at Dandi. Every child in India knows about this but how many know that a similar satyagraha was led in the Madras Presidency (now Tamil Nadu) by...