-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Shri Arun Jaitley said that there is a need to conserve water, incentivize agro processing and promote balanced use of fertilizers in order to ensure higher agriculture productivity. The Finance Minister said that in order to achieve the goal of doubling the farmer’s income by 2022, there is need for better storage and marketing facilities for the...

-The Hindu We need to revisit the credit policy with a focus on the outreach of banks and financial inclusion Since Independence, one of the primary objectives of India’s agricultural policy has been to improve farmers’ access to institutional credit and reduce their dependence on informal credit. As informal sources of credit are mostly usurious, the government has improved the flow of adequate credit through the nationalisation of commercial banks, and the...

-Tehelka.com Learning from the recent starvation deaths in Jharkhand, the nation’s leaders must pay heed to the necessity of ensuring food security for all Food and hunger have been important issues this past month and the news has not been welcome. First it was India’s dismal rank in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2017 released by the International Policy Research Institute rankings — 100th among 119 countries. GHI looks at undernourishment, child...

-The Indian Express Discussions on IFPRI’s Hunger Index illustrate the complexity of India’s malnutrition problem. Solutions must focus on evidence, accountability. India’s ranking in the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI’s) 2017 Global Hunger Index has invited much comment and criticism among India’s intellectual elite. India has slipped to 100 among 119 countries in the 2017 Global Hunger Index, down from 97 among the 118 countries in 2016. Fortunately, the Government of...

-Livemint.com Global Hunger Index 2017 is a grim reminder of the huge disconnect between India’s relatively high levels of growth and its low ranks on human development It took the death of 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari from Jharkhand’s Simdega district to remind the country that hunger and starvation of young children is still a reality in India. This was not the first such incident. Last month, three brothers in Karnataka also died under...