Category: Agriculture

Parliamentary members are once rated very high in society. Now? One is not sure. There are now reports on how our hon’ble MPs conduct themselves in Parliament. The Rajya Sabha is packed with all sorts of people, there are valid criticisms about how the RS members are nominated. It is even said the RS as…

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raised a new controversy with his teacher’- like exposition of the finances of the State Electricity Boards. In inaugurating a power station in Himachal Pradesh, the PM said free power to farmers is not justified and also asked for reducing power subsidies to farmers. This has raised a storm. The first…

What hopes NGO would make a change this time? President Abdul Kalam inaugurated a three-day national summit on rural NGOs in Delhi in April. He spoke with much candour and conviction. What he said is that a large number of NGOs that get lots of foreign funds don’t spend them properly. The funds don’t reach…

Bankers’ behaviour must change The latest news that thanks to agriculture’s strong growth, the economic growth figure had dramatically gone up to nearly 9 percent must cheer all lovers of agriculture! So, farming still matters in the national priorities? But what about the politicians mindset? The PM/FM’s mindset towards farmers? No way to know! This…

Agriculture needs practical solutions! There was recently the Rajya Sabha debate on farmers issues, farmers’s suicides for a record five and half hours. Members cutting across party lines spoke unani mously. M.S.Gill, a former Union Agriculture Secretary, being a senior authority on the subject said it is too serious a topic. So too Rajya Sabha…

A new food safety law Weak consumer rights movement need activation. Sudan-I dye in Indian chillies creates a scare all over the world about India’s food safety standards. World Consumers Day was duly celebrated. Unsafe foods, GM foods, potato, soya, maize based foods with no labels flood our super stores. Food eating out is growing…

Karnataka Agri Minister orders review of agri reserch Indian agri research establishment is a huge body, its network extending the whole of India. Almost all the States have one agri university, some like Maharashtra more than one university. All these five and half decades India had done well in agri sector. There are number of…

Why then governments allow farmers suicides even now? There were two farmers suicides in the month of July. The two were in Karnataka. One in Tumkur district and another in Gulbarga district. The Tumkur farmers committed suicide by hanging himself in his field and the causes are the same ones known to the Prime Minister…