-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Both the UPA and the NDA governments clearly agree on at least the subject of mid-day meals. The Manmohan Singh government told off its own minister on the proposal to bring in pre-packaged food in the scheme, the Modi government is set to do so with one of its most prominent chief ministers. The Prakash Javadekar-led Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry is set to shoot down a...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Seed technology major Monsanto says it is suspending plans to introduce an upgraded version of its genetically modified cotton in India because of uncertainty in the “business and regulatory environment”. Activists say this is a “hypocritical” position. On July 6, Monsanto notified the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, the regulatory authority for approval of biotechnology traits in India, that it was withdrawing its application for the commercial release of...

-The Hindu Business Line Draft Guidelines coming soon for comments from stakeholders New Delhi: With the debate on genetically modified (GM) crops getting intense, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) is considering the option of putting in place Guidelines for socio-economic assessment to judge proposed GM varieties on the basis of factors such as economy, health, environment, society and culture. “Guidelines on socio-economic considerations will make it easier for the Genetic Engineering...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...

-The Times of India DEHRADUN: A report on single-teacher schools across the country, tabled in Parliament on Monday, has thrown up some alarming statistics on the education scenario in India. A solitary teacher is running the show in as many as 1,05,630 government elementary and secondary schools in the country, with MP emerging as the worst state where 17,874 of the institutions have just one teacher each. UP has the second-highest number...