-The Indian Express There is no alternative to boosting domestic production, farmers desperately need the incentive, and the country could do with saving on urea. Pulses are once again on the boil, with consumers paying around 50 per cent more for tur (pigeon pea) and urad (black gram) dal than they did a year ago. Even chana (chick pea), which had turned cheaper in the past three years, has seen a 40...

-The Indian Express One area that has seen some reform, though, relates to Minimum Support Prices (MSP) payable on official paddy and wheat purchases. The “perfect storm” kicked up by extreme weather events and lower crop price realisations — not to mention the political backlash resulting from its controversial land acquisition ordinance — has meant that the first year of the Modi sarkar has gone by without any major reforms in...

-The Indian Express Dealing with the farm distress, while simultaneously creating enough non-farm job opportunities, is going to be a tough task. Call it bad luck or otherwise, the Narendra Modi government’s first year in office hasn’t been a really great one for agriculture and rural incomes. To start with, rainfall was deficient in both the south-west (June-September) and the north-east (October-December) monsoon seasons by over 12 per cent and 33 per...

-The Indian Express Modi government has damaged the rights-based legislative framework without spelling out what will replace it. No  one in the last two decades has come to power with greater euphoria than the Narendra Modi sarkar. It has taken less than a year for that euphoria to recede and change to disappointment. There are sufficient reasons for this change. The celebrations of the first year in office of  this government are in sharp...

-The Financial Express At today’s prices, imports cost less than Indian grain Imagine the irony. India has 34 million tonnes of wheat stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) already and another 3-4 million will get added to this by July 1, but the country is still importing wheat, albeit in very small quantities. By July 1, FCI’s wheat and rice stocks will cross 60 million tonnes as compared to the...