-The Indian Express India should learn from China and start with liberalisation of rural land, labour and capital markets before attempting bigger things. Independence Day has come and gone with its usual mix of celebrations, pride and ruminations on how things could be better. Interestingly, several media commentaries tagged the event with the 25th anniversary of economic reforms, launched in 1991 around the same time of the year. They largely dwelt on the theme...

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 Hindu Chennai: Even as various agencies push farmers to take up cultivation of pulses, questions about seed availability and procurement are making agriculturists think twice about taking it up. Pulses bring in more profits, take lesser time to grow, require lesser water than paddy and fix nitrogen in the soil, thus reducing the use of fertilizers for the next crop. “Though the price of pulses in the retail market is quite...

-The Financial Express With a number of states commencing rollout of the National Food Security Act, 2013, only in the last couple of months, the government has decided to extend the rate at which highly subsidised grains are currently being supplied to states for distribution through the public distribution system (PDS) till end of the current fiscal. Sources told FE that the Centre would continue to provide subsidy so as to enable...

-The Hindu Chennai: Despite producing 27 per cent of the global requirement of pulses, India is still short of around five million tonnes, said S.A. Patil, consultant, Indo-Morocco Food Legume Initiative, at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) on Tuesday. Addressing a press conference to announce a three-day consultation on ‘Enhancing the productivity and profitability of pulses for Addressing Food and Nutrition Security,’ at the MSSRF from Sunday, Dr. Patil said the...