We have 33 supermarkets at the moment. The target is 1,500 in five years.” S.B. Jayaraj, who is gung-ho about his organisation’s plans for Kerala, is not just another retailer. He is the general secretary of the Kerala chapter of Sahakar Bharati — a pan-India body that aims at strengthening the cooperative movement in India, and an affiliate of the RSS, the ideological parent of the ruling BJP. Jayaraj has just got Ernakulam-based Bharath Agro Processing and Marketing Cooperative (BAMCO) registered as a multi-state cooperative society. The first supermarket under the new entity has been opened recently. With over two dozen Grameen Samrudhi stores mentored by Sahakar Bharati since 2017 also being brought under the BAMCO umbrella, the society is all set to have its presence felt in the state.

The focus should be on reducing cost and making the Indian farmer a globally competitive producer. 

India is implementing the world’s biggest project of tagging every bovine animal that may yield huge productivity gains.

Animal husbandry was considered a subsidiary activity, which has changed with the Modi government now according it an independent status

The importance of a livestock census was first recognised in 1919, 47 years after human counting was started in 1872.

As human populations expand, it results in greater contact with domestic and wild animals, providing more opportunities for diseases to pass from one to the other. 

Government must not sacrifice rise in farm incomes at altar of short-term consumer interest or to save RCEP. 

It is the industry that is lobbying the hardest to keep its products out of the free trade agreement currently under negotiation among 16 countries to India’s east and north. Why is this so?