To avoid burdening consumers, the Sri Lankan government has turned down a request by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urging the government to suspend its fuel subsidy. IMF suggested that the

The Union Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs is contemplating a 12 per cent interest subsidy to sugar mills and 5 per cent to farmers. There has been a face-off between it and the finance ministry over the interest subsidy for farmers. The finance ministry says the move is anti-farmer and wants a hike in the subsidy for farmers. A 5 per cent subsidy would mean that the centre will have to foot a Rs 550 crore bill, while a 12 per cent interest support would cost it Rs 1,350 crore.

FOR as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. In 1974-2005 food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scrapes piles of half-eaten leftovers into the bin.

The un Special Rapporteur on the right to food recently has called for a five-year moratorium on biofuels, calling it a "crime against humanity' to convert food crops to fuel. Cereal prices have

reliance gas row: In an interim order, the Bombay High Court has ruled that Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) cannot be forced to sell gas from its eastern offshore KG-D6 fields to

The World Trade Organization (wto) ruled on October 15 that the us has failed to bring subsidies and export credit guarantees to its cotton farmers in conformity with wto rulings. The ruling is a

There is a direct subsidy on urea

violent protests against the public distribution system have spread across many districts in West Bengal over the past weeks.