-The Hindu As cereal consumption comes down despite higher output, India needs to ramp up production of pulses to meet the nutritional requirements of the population. Since the onset of the Green Revolution in the late 1960s, India has been treading on a path towards self-sufficiency in food. The achievements have remained highly skewed towards wheat and rice on account of technological as well as policy support towards these two crops. With...

-Livemint.com Report says only 10.1% of the total households that had been provided employment had been able to complete 100 days of work as stipulated by the MGNREGA New Delhi: The rural job guarantee programme provided only 49 days of work on an average across the country in 2015-16 when drought in several states affected farm output and crimped income. Rural development minister Chaudhary Birender Singh, though, highlighted this number as a...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's annual toll of premature deaths from air pollution is likely to rise to 1.7 million over the next two decades despite planned initiatives to lower power sector and transport emissions, says a study that highlights the need for more action. Released today by the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the study cautions that rising incomes, urbanisation and industrialisation are raising energy consumption in India and worsening air...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘Astonished’ RSS-backed farmers’ body seeks immediate roll-back New Delhi: The Centre’s nod for 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in trading of food products with “no riders”, has not only raised the hackles of the Food Processing Ministry, which has been pushing for 15 per cent mandatory investment in creation of back-end infrastructure to reduce wastage and create jobs, but has also irked farmers organisations, such as...

-The Indian Express Across the country, wage employment generated under the scheme has gone up from 32 crore person-days in April - May 2015 to 51 crore person-days in the corresponding months of 2016. Signalling an increase in uptake of MGNREGA work on the ground owing to drought as well as the slow revival of the scheme itself, the person-days generated in the first two months of the financial year has gone...