Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s son Avijit Mukherjee, who is contesting from Nalhati in Birbhum district as a Congress candidate in the West Bengal assembly elections, has assets worth more than Rs 5 crore jointly with his wife. Avijit who filed his nomination on Tuesday stated in his affidavits that he had movable assets worth Rs 58.2 lakh. These include a Maruti 800 car, an army Mahindra jeep and a revolver...

As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund convene for their annual Spring Meetings here, soaring food prices are high on the agenda, prompting some analysts to fast-forward to 2050 and the question of how to nourish the mid-century's estimated world population of 8.9 billion people – the majority of whom will live in developing countries. "More poor people are suffering and more people could become poor because of high and...

Questioning the call for ‘change' by the Trinamool Congress, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said on Thursday if this meant the return of the land distributed to the poor farmers by the Left Front government over the past years to the zamindars and jotedars, farmers across the State would never allow it. “The farmers will never let go off the land they have been given, however loud the call for...

In early April, the government was sitting on a pile of 44 mt of wheat and rice, more than double of what is required for maintaining the buffer stock Every three or four years, India witnesses a boom-and-bust cycle in agriculture. In the trough, prices hot up and imports of foodgrains become necessary. At the crest, all that is forgotten, there is talk of exports and life moves on. Any thought...

Delhi and Chandigarh may hardly have any land left for agriculture but when it comes to availing cheap farm loans, they beat top Agricultural states of the country. Residents of the two cities took Agricultural loans worth over Rs 32,400 crore in 2009-10 – more than UP, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand put together. The four agrarian states collectively got less than Rs 31,000 crore in 2009-10. Delhi alone has, since 2007-08,...