BHUBANESWAR: The inconsistent monsoon seems to have clouded the food security issue of the common man. The country is going to see a 10 million tonne fall in rice output this kharif season with Orissa being a significant contributor to reduced productivity.

Although drought threatens to eat into India

Stacked in the open exposed to the vagaries of climate, more than 8 million metric tonnes of wheat procured by five government procurement agencies have been rotting in various places in Punjab. The grains, stored by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and the state government, have been packed in plastic bags on open and unhygienic plinths as well as in rented fields.

Raiganj, July 15: The nesting birds in the Kulik sanctuary are facing shortage of food because of lack of rainfall.

Like other years, a large number of open-bill storks, cormorants and herons have set up rookeries for breeding with the advent of the monsoon. But for the past one month, little rainfall has dried up the Kulik river as well as the streams and ponds within the sanctuary.

PAU Notes
In a brainstorming session on

President Obama has enlisted the world

In what has come as a major relief to Punjab foodgrain storage crisis, the Planning Commission has approved state

AMIT AGNIHOTRI
NEW DELHI

June 25: The government is not pressing the panic button despite a rain-deficient June riding on the hope that the delayed monsoon will not affect its food stocks.

The Union finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, today said there was a need to upgrade the food processing industries in the state to preserve excess supply of vegetables and fruit.
He was speaking at the foundation stone-laying ceremony of a new manufacturing edible oil refinery unit at Haldia this morning.

New Delhi: Ahead of finalising the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), the government is struggling first to enumerate the actual number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in the country and to identify agencies both at the Centre and the states to take the legal responsibility for implementing the Act.