-The Financial Express It is clear from global experience that crop insurance is not economically viable and, in a country like India which is dominated by small landholders, it does not even seem to be feasible The demand for crop insurance stems from two ‘risky’ situations that often erode farmers’ income and make them vulnerable to economic distress. These include unpredictable weather and volatile prices. Although vulnerability of Indian agriculture on weather-related...

-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 Indian Express While tractor sales trebled during FY04-14, the last year saw a reversal in the trend with the agri industry facing multiple issues. If there is one indicator capturing the changes that took place in rural India over the past decade, along with the emerging signs of distress in the last year, it is the sales of tractors. Between 2003-04 and 2013-14, domestic tractor sales more than trebled from under...

-Business Standard/ IndiaSpend.org Complex changes in local and global weather patterns will have severe implications for India's 600 million farming community The unseasonal rain and erratic weather unsettling the Indian farmer—and the nation’s agriculture, economy and politics—are no aberrations. Extreme rainfall events in central India, the core of the monsoon system, are increasing and moderate rainfall is decreasing —as a part of complex changes in local and world weather—according to a clutch of...

-The New Indian Express For now the storm is over. Untimely monsoons, which create much havoc for farmers, became a parliamentary allegory with the Congress raining on Modi's parade over the Land Bill. In spite of all the manoeuvring that will follow, clouds threaten to hang low over the next session too. This is indicated in Sonia Gandhi's decision to take to the streets in protest - a leaf taken from...