HAS GREEN REVOLUTION FAILED INDIA'S POOR? Green Revolution Vs Rain-fed Farming OVERVIEW: Of late India’s fabled Green Revolution has come under severe attack. Many development thinkers believe that it has unfairly skewed India’s agriculture policy in favour of the farmers whose land is already or potentially covered under irrigation. The basic criticism is that the Green Revolution has been largely irrelevant for India’s 60 per cent cultivable land which is un-irrigated. These...

Without crop varieties adapting to extremes of weather, feeding world population will be difficult Shortage of water resources will be one of the greatest problems NEW DELHI: “The threat of climate change and its impact on agriculture is real. We have evidence that by 2025 in some parts of the world including India, parts of Asia and parts of Africa, crop yields will drop from anything between 20 and 40 per cent...

Non-governmental organizations are making a difference to the lives of poor and marginalized people in India. Most work in geographically limited areas. They are idealistic and want change, and hope to enter the lives of those they work with. Funding agencies and NGOs are enthused by any sign of change in the long-failed state of Bihar. A virulent and discriminatory caste system that deprives the lower castes even of government-funded...

AT THE recent food summit in Rome, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva donned a pair of bright-red boxing gloves labelled “Hunger Free” and waved to the cameras. They were his prize—if that is the right term—for Brazil’s success in topping a league table drawn up by ActionAid, a British charity, of countries that have done most to reduce hunger*. The occasion was a stunt, of course, but had a...

Two thirds of all maternal deaths occur in just 10 countries; India and Niger together account for one third of maternal deaths worldwide. India’s share of global total of maternal deaths is a staggering 22 per cent, according to the UNICEF’s newly released “State of World’s Children 2009.” (See the whole report in the URL below) India’s dismal record shows its low level of commitment in reducing maternal deaths that...