UNLESS THE prices of vegetables skyrocket and become a scandal — as they have over several weeks now, or as did the price of sugar last year — little in the out-of-sight world of Indian agriculture excites the imagination of the city folks, who influence, rather disproportionately, everything from government policies to newspaper content. Few of those who enjoy a hearty meal and wax lovingly on their favourite dishes can...

The alarm bells are ringing right below our feet. Delhi and portions of Rajasthan falling in the National Capital Region (NCR) extract almost double the amount of groundwater than is recharged every year. The situation is equally bad in NCR portions of Haryana, particularly Gurgaon and Faridabad, which largely depend on groundwater. A status report on groundwater by the NCR Planning Board (NCRPB) reveals that the water table in Delhi...

Bhisham Singh Yadav, father of the groom, is stressed. His rented Lexus got stuck behind a bullock cart. He has hired a truck to blast Hindi pop, but it is too big to maneuver through his village. At least his grandest gesture, evidence of his upward mobility, is circling overhead. The helicopter has arrived. Mr. Yadav, a wheat farmer, has never flown, nor has anyone else in the family. And...

“We are angry, and upset, and do not want these wages,” says Parmila, an illiterate widow from Chittoriya panchayat in Bihar's Katihar district. Her pithy statement sums up the collective current of emotions running through the minds of the 60-odd women workers of Chittoriya, who were paid wages well below the minimum for a six-day work completed in January. As many as 123 workers from Chittoriya, half of them women, were paid...

Diehard devotees may not believe this. But it's true that the water of the holiest among holy rivers -- the Ganga -- fails to meet the drinking and bathing standards after it leaves Garhmukteshwar and is most polluted in Kanpur. The national river meets all three standard parameters -- Bio-Oxygen Demand (BOD), Dissolved Oxygen and total coliform -- only at Rishikesh. For a river water to be fit for bathing...