-Financial Express After government estimates said that Indian agriculture could be heading for bumper kharif crop harvest, experts say that it could provide a major fillip to rice exports. However, the development could potentially put increased pressure on the government to buy the crops at the MSPs, if market rates fall below the benchmark rates on bumper arrivals at mandis. According to government estimates production of kharif foodgrains for 2018-19 crop year...

-The Hindu The benefits being projected in Aadhaar’s name are not backed by the data The first death anniversary of Santoshi Kumar, a Dalit girl from Simdega, Jharkhand, was this week. She died of hunger, at the age of 11, a few weeks after her family’s ration card was cancelled by the State government because they failed to link it to Aadhaar. The Aadhaar judgment of September 26 provided an opportunity for the...

-The Economic Times Agricultural engineer Vilas Shinde has reaped a rich harvest. Sahyadri Farms, the farmer producer company (FPC) set up by him in 2011, has grown to become the largest FPC in the country, with a membership of 8,000 farmers and a turnover of Rs 300 crore. It has overtaken Mahindra Agribusiness to become India’s largest grape exporting company, and many say it may well be on course to revolutionise...

-Down to Earth Throughout ages, many rituals have been associated with millet cultivation and women are to be thanked for this As millets make a comeback to our fields and plates, the formal launch of an extensive campaign beginning from Pune to promote these nutri cereals assumes great significance. According to B Dayakar Rao, principal scientist at the Indian Institute of Millets Research, "The Pune event is basically an extension of the National Millet...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With the upper caste backlash over the government's aggressive pro-Dalit measures roiling the politics, will BJP execute the radical measure of sub-categorisation of OBCs or prefer to procrastinate on the expert commission's pending report? The question was uppermost on the minds of government insiders a day after the chairperson of the Commission tasked with drafting the sub-categorisation blueprint, Justice G Rohini, met Union minister Thavar...