The Centre has decided to put on hold its plans to move ahead with a legislation that would change the way land records are made, kept and used.

Food Ministry wants to limit grain procurement to the needs of PDS

More than 6.6 million tonnes of wheat meant for the public distribution system, is lying in the open, running the risk of damage from rain, Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas admitted here on Thursday. Faced with a problem of plenty, the Food Ministry wants to limit grain procurement to the needs of the public distribution system. It also wants Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh to include construction of medium-capacity godowns in the national rural employment guarantee scheme to augment the grains storage capacity.

The food ministry on Thursday assured the nation all efforts were being made to ensure foodgrains were not damaged because of improper storage. This, despite the fact that due to poor storage facilities, 6.61 million tonnes remain vulnerable to the vagaries of the impending southwest monsoon.

“I can assure all the best efforts are being made to ensure no grain is damaged in the monsoon,” Food Minister K V Thomas told reporters. He added of the total foodgrain stock in central pool, estimated at about 82 million tones, about 87 per cent was in safe storage facilities.

Reports positive impact of hybrid variety on socio-economic development.

Almost a year after Saranda was wrested out of Maoist control by security forces, large numbers of tribal families living in the dense forests of the Jharkhand district have found themselves left out in the cold when it comes to government assistance.

“We discovered that just about 3,000 of the 7,000-odd forest dwelling tribal families in Saranda are on the BPL [below poverty line] list,” says Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh. Those not on the list are not eligible for the Central government’s welfare schemes.

Waking up to the menace of water contamination and unabated cases of Japanese Encephalitis (JE), the Centre has decided to undertake a pilot project in 60 districts spread over five states where `525 crores will be spent in 2012-13 to improve the quality of water. The Centre has also agreed to sign an agreement with the World Bank for a $500 million worth grant for expansion of rural drinking water.

“After decades of witnessing cases of Japanese Encephalitis and Acute Encephalitis (AE) in some of the states, we have decided to improve the quality of drinking water, with an initial allocation of `525 crores.

New Delhi Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has criticised the government for its ‘failure’ to invest in public sector-initiated biotech research in agriculture, even as he stressed the need for scientific validation of the impact of Bt cotton on the sector.

“There are serious scientific issues raised by responsible scientists on Bt cotton - yield fatigue, immunity to pests, toxicity, etc. These have to be studied carefully. The failure of the public sector Bt cotton initiative is very unfortunate and we must have a strong publicly-funded and publicly-managed biotech initiative in agriculture,

Sixty per cent of people living in India do not have access to toilets, and hence are forced to defecate in the open. In actual numbers, sixty per cent translates to 626 million. This makes India the number one country in the world where open defecation is practised. Indonesia with 63 million is a far second!

At 949 million in 2010 worldwide, vast majority of people practising open defecation live in rural areas. Though the number of rural people practising open defecation has reduced by 234 million in 2010 than in 1990, “those that continue to do so tend to be concentrated in a few countries, including India,” notes the 2012 update report of UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The prestigious Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) has spurned Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh’s offer to help restructure and professionalise the 25-year-old crippled CAPAR

Guwahati, June 11: Union minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh today approved in principle connectivity to 270 habitations in Arunachal Pradesh with a cost of approximately Rs 1,918 crore in