Mar. 31 – India's population might be rising, but food grain production is back to its pre green revoultionn level. The disparity in demand and supply is fueling a stark price rise driving a national and global food crisis.
“Yes, we have a problem,’’ admits Abhijit Sen, economist and Planning Commission member, “and it can be starkly put in the following way: roughly around 2004-05, our per capita foodgrain production was back to the 1970s level,” reported the Times of India on Monday.

The figures tell a stark story. In 1979, at the height of the Green Revolution euphoria, per capita availability of cereals and pulses had gone up to 476.5 grams per day. The corresponding figure in 2006 was 444.5 grams per day, according to provisional government statistics. In 2005, it was still lower at 422 grams. In the case of pulses, per capita net availability today is almost half of what it was five decades ago — 32.5 grams per day in 2006 compared with 60.7 grams per day in 1951.

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Mar. 21: India's estimated 5.7 million Indian workers abroad sent home $27 billion in 2007 to make India the top receiver of migrant remittances while the US was the main remittance source, according to latest World Bank data, reported the Times of India. In contrast workers from China ($25.7 billion), Mexico ($25 billion), the Philippines ($17 billion), and France ($12.5 billion) made up the rest of top five, the bank’s new Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008 said. For 2007, recorded remittances flows worldwide are estimated at $318 billion, of which $240 billion went to developing countries.

The US was also the top immigration country in 2005, with 38.4 million immigrants, followed by the Russian Federation (12.1 million), and Germany (10.1 million). Among low-income countries, India had the highest immigration volume (5.7 million), followed by Pakistan (3.3 million).

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