-The Indian Express Indian agriculture has made remarkable progress since 1947 and credit for this goes mainly to the farmer. Now we need to repay our debt to the agricultural community As India celebrates its 68th year of independence, it is time to pause and look back at the major challenges we have faced since Independence and how they were overcome, as well as at the mistakes and follies we committed...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmers' unions and political parties have been demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan minimum support price (cost plus 50%) to address agrarian crisis and farmers' distress. But they have not raised demands for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers, which have the potential to provide lasting solutions. Ranjit Singh Ghuman (ghumanrs@yahoo.co.uk) is a Nehru SAIL Chair Professor, Centre for Research in Rural and...

-India Infoline News Service   Mumbai: Efforts at the central and state government level to improve rural infrastructure, food distribution and non-agricultural employment opportunities are credit positive because, if sustained, they are likely to lower the credit challenges that India's vulnerability to drought poses. Moody's Investor's Service says that although India (Baa3 positive) may avoid drought this year, its economy remains vulnerable to future droughts or fluctuations in rainfall, and its sovereign credit...

-The Indian Express   It has only managed to kill manufacturing and employment growth    In the 1950s, misapplied economic policies gave India one of the lowest growth rates in the world for 30 years, and left it behind East and Southeast Asia. Now another set of policies is completing its economic ruin. The architect of this is the RBI and its instrument of choice, the interest rate. Indian business has been begging for a...

-Hindustan Times India’s June-September monsoon has been deficient so far and quite uneven in its spread, with the rain-bearing system entering a phase that will largely determine whether the country can escape a drought for the first time in six years.   Overall, rains have been 9% lower than normal, with sharper deficits in some areas. Rainfall during August-September, the remaining two months of the rainy season, would be poor at 84%, the...