Food sector to touch $310 billion by 2015: CII
New Delhi: Against the backdrop of the recently enacted Food Safety and Standards Act international food experts are converging in the Capital city next week for a two-day conference to discuss the opportunities in India.

According to the Confederation of Indian Industry the Indian food sector is estimated to be worth over $200 billion at present and is expected to grow to $310 billion by 2015.

The meeting is expected to be held on April 10-11 and would be attended by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's chief of food quality and standards service, vice-chairpersons of Codex Alimentarius Commission and representatives of regulatory authorities from the US, the UK, Ireland, Brazil, New Zealand, Singapore and other countries, a release from CII said.
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India can achieve 10 per cent growth: Ahluwalia
Hyderabad: India's target of 10 per cent economic expansion is possible, as the country has a recipe for sustained growth, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said while delivering the convocation address at the Graduation Ceremony of the Indian School of Business.

He added that however, this would not be possible if agriculture was not put on a higher growth path. The economy is expected to grow at nine per cent over the next five years and we hope it will touch 10 per cent at the end of the five-year period. It requires a lot of hard work to achieve this but it is possible," Ahluwalia said.

The agriculture sector, which had witnessed 3.6 per cent growth rate between 1980 and 1996, had since started decelerating and fell to less than two per cent.

With the pace of globalisation set to grow over the next 20 years, making the markets more open to foreign goods, Indian industry would have a far wider footprint across the globe.

He said that by 2035, India's GDP will become the third largest in the world after United States and China.
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Government asks IIMs, IITs to put admissions on hold
New Delhi: Following the Supreme Court stay on the implementation of OBC quota the HRD Ministry has asked all the IIMs, IITs and centrally funded institutions to put on hold the admission process.

The Ministry has told the Central educational institutions including top medical, engineering and management schools like IIMs not to issue offer of admission, Ministry sources said.

They said that the managements of these institutions have been told to keep the entire admission process on hold "till they hear from the ministry".

The directive from the Ministry comes a day after a meeting of leaders of UPA and Left parties which resolved that a the government would take all "appropriate" steps to ensure that the reservation for OBCs to the extent of 27 per cent becomes operational from this academic session.
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