-Livemint.com All our solutions in agriculture, besides management issues, are going to come from science and technology, says Deepak Pental, innovator of GM mustard Last week, the environment ministry’s regulator, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), cleared the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) mustard, leaving it to the government to take a final call. If approved, it will be India’s first food crop developed using transgenic technology, 15 years after Bt...

-The Times of India MADURAI: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), rolled out a decade ago, has impacted households and individuals in a positive as well as negative way, but the adverse impacts of the scheme could impact the nation's food security, according to an authoritative study. What may set the alarm bells ringing is the projected decline in acreage under rice cultivation in states like Tamil Nadu and...

-Business Standard Activists, others question yield and bio-safety data; GM mustard can improve yields by 25-30% After many ifs and buts, the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) mustard seems to have reached a decisive phase after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) recommended on Thursday that it be allowed.   The ministry of environment and forests will now decide on whether this herbicide-tolerant variety can become the first GM food crop to be...

-Hindustan Times A new report examining 25 years of India’s economic liberalisation says exclusion of a large section of Dalits and Muslims have not gained adequately from the growth unlike more influential empowered sections of the society As India’s economy grew rapidly, the inequality between the richest and the poorest rose, the number of landless farmers increased and employment generation was lowest in 2015, says a new report examining 25 years...

-PTI The government attaches the highest priority to job creation, says Arvind Panagariya The government has set up a task force headed by Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya to recommend ways to deal with employment data discrepancies and come up with reliable solutions to promote job creation.   “A task force has been created under the chairmanship of the vice-chairman, NITI Aayog  Arvind Panagariya with Labour Secretary M Sathiyavathy, Secretary Statistics  T C A...