The Union Cabinet has approved the setting up of three national-level multi-State cooperative societies to act as an apex body for procurement, processing, marketing and distribution of seeds.

• Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah said on Wednesday that the societies would help the “protection of indigenous natural seeds which are becoming extinct”.
• In a tweet, he said the cooperatives were the only sector that touched crores of people, but had remained ignored for many years till the Narendra Modi government decided to strengthen them.