Monsanto offers fellowship for research on rice, wheat breeding

October 14th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on Wednesday announced the establishment of the Australia-India Council Media Fellowships. hese new fellowship will give India's young media professionals grants of Australian dollars 10,000 (four lakh rupees) to enable them to spend up to six weeks in Australia researching stories of their choice.

September 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Allaying fears of country falling short of rice supply, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar here today said that there was sufficient supply to fulfill the needs. Pawar said, due to last year's good rice production, this year, the supplies were sufficient, but efforts would need to be made to increase the production.

September 4th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Wholesale prices of rice rose more than 13 percent in the past one year due to a demand-supply mismatch, says the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham). The industry forum said the price of wheat similarly rose by about five percent.

August 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday said that he expected rice output to slump by ten million tonnes this Kharif season, but added that the UPA Government would not hesitate to introduce measures to check spiraling prices of rice and wheat in the wake of bad monsoon. Addressing a conference of State Food and Civil Supplies Ministers here on Wednesday, Pawar said the government is keen to buy more to build adequate reserves and strengthen the Public Distribution System (PDS).

August 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said that the production of rice in this year's kharif season may come down by about 10 million tonnes due to deficient rainfall. Addressing State Food Ministers' conference here, Pawar said that in the wake of expectations of reduced production of rice and wheat, the government will not hesitate to undertake open market intervention and release of wheat and rice under Open Market Sale Scheme to the state governments.

August 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The government Wednesday said it would not hesitate to regulate prices of food commodities as it expects rice production to fall by 10 million tonnes due to a weak monsoon this year. In the wake of expectations of reduced production of rice and wheat, the government will not hesitate to undertake open market intervention and release wheat and rice under the Open Market Sale Scheme to the state governments, said Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar at a conference of state food ministers here.

July 28th, 2009 NEW DELHI - There is no reason to panic over the inadequate rains in the country for the meteorological department has predicted good monsoon in August, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said Saturday. Replying to a special discussion on drought conditions in the country in the Lok Sabha, Pawar said except paddy crop, whose area of cultivation had fallen drastically, the figures for rest of the major crops in the country were comparable to the corresponding period last year.

July 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today informed the Rajya Sabha that the Government would stop all exports of non-Basmati rice and wheat, and bear half of the subsidy on diesel offered to farmers by the states in order to counter the deficient rainfall. Pawar announced these decisions on Friday, a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his cabinet colleagues were briefed on the monsoon situation and Kharif sowing.

May 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Beta-carotene in so-called 'Golden Rice' converts to vitamin A in humans, according to researchers. Golden Rice was developed in the early 1990s with the goal of creating rice that had beta-carotene, a vitamin A precursor, in the rice grain.

April 26th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India, whose agricultural productivity is 35-50 percent lower than the world average, requires more private participation and investment in agricultural research and development (R&D), an industry lobby has said. 'India's, agricultural productivity is between 35-50 percent below the world average.

April 9th, 2009 SHIMLA - Moderate to heavy snowfall and rain at many places in Himachal Pradesh Thursday triggered fresh worries for the farmers in the state. 'Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district had 25 centimetres snow during the past 24 hours, while the Rohtang Pass in Kullu district is still receiving snow,' Manmohan Singh, director of the meteorological office in Shimla, told IANS.

March 28th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Archaeologists have come across new proof which determines that China is the cradle of rice cultivation. For the research, Dorian Fuller from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, Zheng Yunfei from Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Antiquity and Archaeology and a few other Chinese archaeologists, investigated rice remains at the Neolithic excavation site of Tianluoshan, part of the local Hemudu Neolithic Culture that goes back 7,000 years in Zhejing province.

March 25th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) has urged political parties to refrain from offering free power and foodgrains like wheat and rice at highly subsidised rates, saying such freebies could stunt economic growth in the long run. In an appeal to political parties Wednesday, Assocham said they should balance their offer of free power to farmers and others with specific steps to prevent misuse.

March 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The government Thursday agreed in principle to lift the two-year-old ban on wheat exports once elections end in mid-May this year, said a top official. The empowered group of ministers (eGoM), led by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee which met here Thursday, however, decided that the notification to this would be issued only after the end of the elections.

February 25th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The much awaited biotech rice, the insect-resistant variety with high nutritional value, will be commercially available in India only by 2011-12, scientists said here Tuesday. 'The polished rice we generally consume does not have iron content as its pulp is removed.