-The Business Standard The service would be launched across the country to provide information, advisories and services for India's 120 mn farmers Following the footsteps of services like Reuters Market Light (RML) of Thompson Reuters and Dr. Dekalb Farm Care of Monsanto India, the Union department of agriculture is starting its own SMS-based farm information and advisory service to be called the Kisaan SMS. According to an official statement, the SMS-based service would...

-The Economic Times The monsoon made a dream start this year. Bountiful rainfall in June has prepared the ground for bumper harvest and lower food inflation. But don't celebrate. Look beyond the immediate future and good monsoon this year may not really be good news. It has merely delayed an Agricultural crisis, which our complacent policymakers perhaps need to jolt them into action. With food demand rising in step with the growing...

-Frontline Professor Sukhpal Singh, a faculty member of the Centre for Management of Agriculture at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, has been researching and documenting the process of contract farming and food supply chains in India for more than a decade. He is of the view that the small farmer is being excluded in the method currently in place, which defeats the very purpose of improving Indian agriculture. Sukhpal Singh,...

-The Indian Express Dehradun: This horse has spent his entire life ferrying pilgrims to and from Kedarnath Dham. And since December 16 -- when the first rush of water brought with it untold devastation for the region -- this horse has been stuck on a rocky bed across river Mandakini, without a blade of grass to graze on. We shall call him Hope. ''All attempts, by NGOs and even the Army, to...

-The Hindu The hostility to the UPA's food security Bill from both its allies and the Opposition stems not from substantial objections to the draft law itself but from other political grouses The decision to bring an ordinance to provide food security to 67 per cent of the country's population was received with much hostility by the Opposition parties last week. The latter seemed surprised that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) could...