VADODARA: Your morning cup of tea would not fire up your sleepy senses without a little milk in it, and yet a debate has been stirred up on what should be India's national drink - tea or milk.

On Saturday, deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia announced in Jorhat, the tea capital of India, that tea will be given that place of pride by April next year.

Anand: The first phase of National Dairy Plan (NDP), the ambitious scheme to double India’s milk production, was launched at the headquarters of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in the country’s milk capital here on Thursday.

Launched as ‘Mission Milk’, NDP proposes to usher in country’s second White Revolution. Since 1998, India has already emerged as world’s largest milk producer.

The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is all set to roll out its ambitious, 15-year-long National Dairy Plan, envisaging an outlay of Rs 17,300 crore, with the Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, launching its first phase here on April 19. The Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, will be the chief guest at the ceremony to be held at the NDDB headquarters. The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industry, Dr Charan Das Mahant, will also be present, an NDDB official said here on Tuesday.

The Union rural development ministry is setting up a body called “Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation’ (BRLF) with a `1,000-crore corpus with the help of India Inc, to promote economic and social empowerment in 170 districts, including those affected by Naxal violence.

“I have already written to the Tatas, Reliance, Infosys, and Wipro, apart from the dairy cooperative NDDB, and Nabard, to be the founding members of BRLF. My ministry is giving initial corpus of `500 crore,” Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said here on Sunday.

Kozhikode: The World Bank has approved a $ 352-million credit for the National Dairy Support Project. The project will cover over 40,000 villages across 14 major dairying states in the country, benefitting an estimated 1.7 million rural households. The States included in the project, such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, account for more than 90 per cent of the national milk production, according to a World Bank report.

Project aims at boosting production using scientific breeding and feeding.
The Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs has approved the National Dairy Development Board’s ambitious National Dairy Plan for the 12th Five-Year Plan starting this year. The government will launch this countrywide plan with an outlay of Rs 1,760 crore. International Development Association will provide Rs 1,584 crore towards the project and the rest Rs 176 crore will come from the Union government.

Anand (Gujarat) India continues to be the largest milk producing nation, according to the report of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for 2010-11.

The country’s estimated milk production for the period stood at 121 million tonne (mt), close to 17% of the world’s total produce.

Move To Help Tribals Get Better Price For Goods

Ahigh-level committee appointed to examine introduction of minimum support price (MSP) for non-timber forest produce is considering a national cooperative revolution similar to Operation Flood to empower tribals collecting sal seeds, gum kariah and other minor forest produce.

The committee, which was appointed in August under Mr T Haque

GUWAHATI, Aug 29