-The Economic Times At a time when the Rangarajan committee is giving final touches to its recommendations on sugar deregularisation, The Union food ministry has come up with two proposals for fixing new retail price of sugar sold in ration shops (levy sugar) to reduce the food subsidy bill. According to the first proposal, the food ministry has recommended to free up the prices of levy sugar and allow state governments to...

-The Economic Times A late revival of monsoon may have narrowed the rain deficit to single digit (9%) but it is unlikely to help boost food grains production. "There would be a decline in the overall food grains production. There would be some drop in the production of pulses and coarse cereals," said Agriculture Secretary Ashish Bahuguna. He said the indication will start coming after the first advance estimates of the kharif...

-The Hindu The World Bank has joined the chorus warning the world of an impending food crisis with damaging food price inflation. In its late-August edition of its Food Price Watch the Bank reported that global prices for food as reflected by its Food Price Index rose 10 per cent in July 2012 alone. The prices of staples such as corn and soya bean were at an all-time high that month,...

-Live Mint Cipla Ltd won a landmark patent case against Swiss drug maker F Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd in the Delhi high court on Friday over the Indian company’s generic copy of lung cancer drug Tarceva after a four-year court battle. Justice Manmohan Singh observed in his 280-page judgement that it had been scientifically proven that Cipla’s generic version was a polymorph B variant of Roche’s patented drug and that it didn’t actually...

-The Times of India State-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) are all set to increase price of petrol by Rs 5 a litre with effect from Saturday, while the prices of diesel, cooking gas and kerosene will be increased next week once Congress president Sonia Gandhi returns after her medical checkup on September 10. A cabinet note on increasing the prices of sensitive petroleum products like diesel, cooking gas and kerosene has already...