-The Indian Express Why the revival of exports matters as much as rains for Indian farmers. It is generally held that the woes of Indian farmers today have had largely to do with extreme weather events. The southwest monsoon failed in both 2014 and 2015. Besides, we had extensive crop damage from unseasonal rain and hailstorms over large parts of north, west and central India in March 2015. From this also follows the...

-The Indian Express The suffering of millions does not create public outrage, much less government accountability. The people of India’s villages carry collective memories of centuries of calamitous losses of sometimes millions of lives in famines. Famines have been pushed into history, unarguably one of free India’s greatest accomplishments. But the same can’t be said about droughts, which continue to extract an enormous toll on human suffering. At least a third of the...

-The Hindu It is the Supreme Court and not Parliament that has found time to pay attention to serious issues of drought relief and mitigation for hundreds of millions of Indians Irony. This one word captures our response to the ongoing nationwide drought in more ways than one. We have woken up to the reality of drought a full six months after the end of monsoon. After waking up, we focus on...

-The Times of India BANDA: In Uttar Pradesh's parched Bundelkhand region, one farmer is scripting a success story, and has set an example in a region ravaged by farmers' suicide and drought. Locals and activists are now approaching Prem Singh to find out how his practices have transformed his farm into a lush area. Bundelkhand, according to the estimates of NGO Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan, has seen 113 farmers' suicides since January...

It seems that not only civil society activists, but even the poor and marginalized themselves are not happy with the Centre’s social welfare policies. Following the recent protest by 150 eminent persons regarding failure of the NDA Government to take-up urgent measures for employment generation and ensuring food, nutrition & drinking water security in the backdrop of severe drought in roughly 1/3rd of Indian districts (please click here to access),...