According to the minister, 'Food 360 Degrees' will be the key information provider and disseminator of the ministry's programmes and activities and will act as a valuable guide to all stakeholders in the sector.

Apart from carrying information about the ministry's policies and schemes, the publication will also have news relevant to the sector and present case studies of successful ventures in the food processing industry.

The inaugural issue of the publication carries an interview of Sahai where he outlines the emerging partnership between industry and agriculture and how it will impact the food processing industry. It also gives details of the various schemes of MoFPI under the 11th Five-Year Plan.

The new website will act as an authentic information repository for all stakeholders of the sector as well as the general public. The ministry also hopes that it will act as a potential tool to help investors from within the country as well as abroad.

Speaking at the function, MoFPI Secretary Ashok Sinha said that the launch of the magazine marks the ministry's first attempt at public communication on a regular basis.

'Though the publication is a quarterly now, we hope to make it a monthly in the future,' he said.

MoFPI Joint Secretary Ashok Kumar, who was also present, said: 'The website we had was not that interactive. But now it is no longer the case.'

Both the publication and the website are being seen as key information disseminators as MoFPI works towards meeting the targets it has set under the Vision 2015 plan it had chalked out in 2005.

These targets are: trebling the size of the food processing sector in the country from $70 billion in 2005 to around $210 billion in 2015; increasing the level of processing of perishables from 6 percent to 20 percent; increase value addition from 20 percent to 35 percent; and increasing India's share in the global food trade from 1.5 percent to 3 percent.