FDI in retail will help farmers, consumers: PM Manmohan Singh

December 8, 2012
manmohanFDI

Ludhiana, December 8: A day after winning Parliament's approval to the decision of allowing FDI in retail, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said the move will benefit farmers and consumers and help introduce new technologies in agri marketing.

He also said the decision to allow FDI was "supported" by farmers' organisations in Punjab.

Speaking as a chief guest at Punjab Agricultural University's golden jubilee function here, he said FDI in retail will help introduce new technologies in agri marketing, and will "benefit farmers and consumers".

The decision to allow FDI was backed by farmers' organisations in Punjab, he said at the PAU function, where he was honoured with a Doctor of Science degree.

Government had on Friday won the approval of Parliament to its controversial decision of allowing FDI in multi-brand retail with a motion against it being defeated convincingly in Rajya Sabha, as BSP voted in favour of UPA. 123 members had voted against the motion while 109 voted in favour after a debate during which the opposition had attacked the proposal to allow 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail, while the government had strongly justified it saying it was in the best interest of the country.

Speaking at the university, Singh asked leading farm varsities like PAU to gear up to meet the existing and future challenges in the agriculture sector.

He said agriculture supply chains in India are fragmented and stressed the need for development of efficient and vertically integrated supply chains.

Stressing that investments in backend infrastructure can help cut down loss of perishable crops, he asked Punjab "to take the lead in best practices of crop management".

Singh also hoped that Punjab will fare better as 12th five-year plan has for the country as a whole "targeted 8.2 growth in the GDP and 4 per cent in agriculture".

Expressing concern over exploitation of ground water in Punjab, the Prime Minister said it far exceeds what can be recharged.

"80 per cent development blocks have been categorised as over exploited," he said, adding that the challenge for sustainable agriculture was to help farmers take up diversification.

Even though the rice-wheat cropping pattern is profitable, it has led to over-exploitation of the water, he noted.

Singh said gradual phasing or shifting to other crops as well will not affect overall food security of the country and pointed out that in addition to states like Punjab, eastern and central parts of the country together with leading agrarian states, can help ease the burden of food security.

For crop diversification, he said state like Punjab can take up alternative crops like maize, cotton, sugarcane, oilseeds, besides fruits and vegetables.

He also made a mention of the Centre's National Food Security Mission launched five years back and said the efforts under it were producing results.

The Prime Minister asked farm varsities like PAU to also gear up to face the challenges posed by the climate change.

"Rising temperatures will also have negative effects on productivity," he said, adding current varieties of wheat can also be hit by the climate change.

Asking PAU to develop varieties that are resistant keeping the climate change in mind, he said, "We must deal now with the expected threats that appear on the horizon."


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News Network
June 5,2020

Jun 5: Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his wife Mahzabeen have tested positive for COVID-19, a top government source told CNN News 18. They were admitted to the Army Hospital in Karachi.

Some of Dawood's personal staff and guards have also been quarantined, the report said on Friday.

Dawood was the mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai blasts and is one of the most-wanted gangsters by India. He has allegedly been living in Pakistan but the neighbouring country has always refusing to accept it.

Earlier in the day, a senior diplomat of the American embassy in Pakistan has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, a media report said.

In a statement, the embassy's spokesman said that while maintaining the privacy, the name of the citizen would not be disclosed.

The US State Department is responsible to protect its citizens, wherever they are, the spokesman added. In coordination with the Pakistani authorities, the consulate is working to enforce the coronavirus protocol in order to stem its spread. The spokesman added that isolation wards, contact tracing and quarantine facility are part of such protocols.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has 89,249 COVID-19 cases and the death toll is 1,838.

 

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News Network
June 11,2020

New Delhi, Jun 11: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday said the religious and constitutional rights of minorities are absolutely safe in India and it does not need any certificate from anyone as communal harmony and tolerance are in the DNA of the country and its majority community.

Comments of Rijiju, a Buddhist, came after a top Trump administration official has said that the US is very concerned about what is happening in India in terms of religious freedom.

"India doesn't need certificate on communal harmony and tolerance which is in the DNA of India and the majority community in India," Rijiju, who holds the charge of the Union minister of state for minority affairs besides being the union sports minister, said in a statement.

Rijiju said the social, religious and constitutional rights of minorities are absolutely safe in the country.

"A few politically intolerant people are trying to create an atmosphere of fear and intolerance. As a member of the minority community, I feel India is the best country in the world for the minorities," he said.

Samuel Brownback, the US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, said on Wednesday that India has been a country area that spawned four major religions itself.

"We do remain very concerned about what's taking place in India. It's historically just been a very tolerant, respectful country of religions, of all religions," he said.

The trendlines have been troubling in India because it is such a religious subcontinent and seeing a lot more communal violence, Brownback said.

His comments came after the release of the '2019 International Religious Freedom Report'.

Mandated by the US Congress, the report documenting major instances of the violation of religious freedom across the world was released by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department.

India has previously rejected the US religious freedom report, saying it sees no locus standi for a foreign government to pronounce on the state of its citizens' constitutionally protected rights.

"India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion", the government had said earlier.

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News Network
April 15,2020

New Delhi, Apr 15: Tablighi Jamaat leader Maulana Saad Kandhalvi has been booked for culpable homicide after some of the attendees of the religious congregation died due to coronavirus, police said on Wednesday.

Kandhalvi had organised the religious gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz last month against the social distancing protocol imposed by the Centre to curb the spread of the deadly disease.

An FIR was registered against the cleric on March 31 at Crime Branch police station on a complaint of the Station House Officer of Nizamuddin.

He was earlier booked for holding the event, police said.

“After several attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat event succumbed to coronavirus, we added IPC section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) in the FIR against the leader, a police official said.

Some foreigners who attended the event have also been booked for violation of visa norms.

In an audio message, Kandhalvi had said that he was exercising self-quarantine after several hundreds who visited the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamudddin Markaz tested positive for coronavirus.

The FIR registered against the Tablighi Jamaat event says that the Delhi Police contacted the authorities of Nizamuddin Markaz on March 21 and reminded them of the government order which prohibited any political or religious gathering of more than 50 people.

It says that despite repeated efforts, the event organisers failed to inform the health department or any other government agency about the huge gathering inside the Markaz and deliberately disobeyed government orders.

“The sub district magistrate of Defence Colony inspected the premises several times and found that around 1,300 people, including foreign nationals, were residing there without maintaining social distance. It was also found that there were no arrangements of hand sanitizers and face masks,” the FIR adds.

The Nizamudddin centre, attended by thousands, turned out to be a hotspot for spread of coronavirus not only in the national capital, but the entire country.

More than 25,500 Tablighi members and their contacts have been quarantined in the country after the Centre and the state governments conducted a "mega operation" to identify them.

At least 9,000 people participated in the religious congregation in Nizamuddin. Later, many of the attendees travelled to various parts of the country.

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