-The Hindu The Hindu decided to find out whether these forecasts have worked in the past. Answer (based on 10 years of forecast data): not very accurately Chennai: Following the India Meteorological Department’s forecast of an ‘above normal’ monsoon of 106 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) on Tuesday, The Hindu decided to find out whether these forecasts have worked in the past. Answer (based on 10 years of forecast...

-Livemint.com The efforts of the government in revamping the crop insurance and land titling schemes are long-term solutions which will take time to bear results The agricultural sector is facing its worst moment in the last three decades. The last time India saw such distress caused by back-to-back deficient rains was during the drought of 1986-87 and 1987-88. The severity of the situation is evident from the stories of migration and...

-Hindustan Times Mansa: As cases of suicide by farmers due to indebtedness continue to be reported in the district, there are hundreds of households in which children, who have lost their fathers, have inherited debt and accompanying distress. Ranjeet Singh, 35, a farmer from Kotdharmu village, ended his life in 2013 after he failed to repay the debt of his father who had been forced to incur it several years ago. His ailing...

-The Hindu Forging gram sabha resolutions clears the path to lucrative mining... Such fictions manufacture on file the legal requirement of villagers’ participation and consent. Over 12,000 villages across Odisha conserve their community forests, says a 2013 Odisha Jungle Manch study. In a visit last October to seven villages in Keonjhar district’s Gandhamardan range, Munda communities showed me their forest protection rosters. Each roster listed four villagers for every weekday to roam...

-The Indian Express Substantial number of interest subvention scheme loans are diverted to non-agricultural uses. Government must switch to an income-support subsidy regime The Union budget for 2016-17 has provisioned Rs 15,000 crore on account of interest subvention for short-term agricultural credit, up by Rs 2,000 crore over the revised estimate for FY16. The mere shifting of this line item from the department of financial services to the department of agriculture...