The government has assured full support to Indian companies exploring opportunities to acquire agricultural land in Africa for cultivation of pulses in order to deal with its domestic shortage. "We import pulses and we will be more supportive of more land being brought under cultivation and for value addition. India is the market and we have been investing in agriculture...," Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma had said. With the unabated...

Spurred by the need to look at impact of climate change on water resources, the Centre is formulating a revised National Water Policy in consultation with the States and other stakeholders to ensure basin-level management strategies to deal with variability in rainfall and river flows due to climate change. Ecology over industry? The government is also looking at amendment to the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, and the River Boards Act for time-bound...

India is taking proactive measures and ready to make concessions to ensure a successful conclusion of the Doha round of multilateral trade talks, an official said here Tuesday. Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma is scheduled to meet World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy, chairs of the sub-groups on agriculture, industrial products and services and ambassadors of various informal groupings at the WTO headquarters in Geneva Wednesday to push for...

Spurred by the need to look at climate change impact on water resources, the Centre is formulating a revised National Water Policy in consultation with the States and other stakeholders to ensure basin-level management strategies. This would deal with variability in rainfall and river flows due to climate change. The Government is also looking at amendment to the Inter-State Water Disputes Act and the River Boards Act for time-bound clarificatory/supplementary orders...

Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad called for a "jihad" against tobacco use after a report released on Tuesday identified India as the world's second largest consumer of tobacco. An estimated 274.9 million Indians consume tobacco, the first Global Adult Tobacco Survey said. Nearly 0.9 million tobacco-related deaths occur in India annually as compared to 5.5 million world wide. India is also the world's third largest producer of tobacco, the report added. "A...