Rituparna Bhuyan & Ajay Modi / New Delhi August 2, 2008, 0:42 IST

Prices of key farm produce like wheat and rice in India are way below international prices, which means rural households will not be robbed of their income if liberal imports of these commodities are allowed.

Data collected by Business Standard show that rice prices in India are less than half of global prices, whereas wheat sells at two-thirds of global prices. While soya oil prices are the same in the two markets, cotton prices are slightly higher in India. These commodities can be exported free of duty to India.

The water inflow in the Indus River system has dropped to an alarming level of 281,000 cusecs per day from 500,000 recorded last week, and Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has asked the provinces to submit revised water requisitions by Wednesday, sources said on Monday.

The authority would start providing water to Punjab and Sindh according to the new water plan from August 1.

Chandan Kishore Kant / Mumbai July 22, 2008, 0:28 IST
Gujarat, Maharashtra and MP contributed over 60 per cent of the total output in 2007-08.

Poor rains are playing havoc with cotton production in central India

More often than not, discussions about India's policy on genetically modified (GM) crops result in the point being made about how slow the entire process of clearances by the Genetic Engineering Approvals Committee (GEAC) is. One of the reasons for this is that the GEAC does not give credit to tests conducted overseas and insists they be carried out all over again; the alternative approach would be to say that if certain tests have already been conducted in similar agro-climatic zones overseas, the GEAC should assume the same results will obtain in India as well.

Arunkumar Bhatt MUMBAI: With the first and second sowing of cotton failing in the five districts of Vidarbha, the agrarian crisis in the region has further deepened, making Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti demand in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, free distribution of coarse grains seeds such as bajra and jowar and assistance of Rs. 2000 an acre to save the debt-hit three million farmers. As the rain plays truant, five districts in the region have not received even one hour of continuous rain, leading to dry conditions.

Incentives on export of basic raw material withdrawn NEW DELHI: Yielding to the textile industry's demand as also to rein in inflation, the Central Government has scrapped the customs duty on imports of raw cotton and withdrew incentives on export of the basic raw material with effect from July 8 to boost its domestic availability.