-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Farmers will be able to directly sell fruits and vegetables to consumers and wholesalers in Delhi as the city will have a 'kisan mandi' by September after the government changes the law that gives traders and middlemen a monopoly. Farmers and farmer producer organisations (FPOs) will be able meet part of Delhi's demand of 15,000 tonnes of vegetables a day after the Delhi Agriculture Produce Market (APMC)...

-Reuters NEW DELHI: India's reservoirs are depleting fast and monsoon rains need to pick up now if they are to have enough water to prevent a drop in output of major winter crops such as wheat and rapeseed that are sown from October, a senior government official said. Rains were 15 per cent below average in the week to July 16, an improvement from the previous week's shortfall of 41 per cent...

-Deccan Herald The Green Revolution has changed life in Indian villages, but the main beneficiaries were the landlords. Daily labourers remain poor and marginalised. The limits of using ever more fertiliser and pesticides are becoming apparent. Many farmers are confused because extension services want them to reconsider practices they were told to abandon not that long ago. A member of the Santal tribe, an Adivasi community, assesses things from the village perspective. Since independence...

-The Hindu We need a National Authority on Hunger Elimination, with adequate funds and exclusive powers, administrative and financial Of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations, the first relates to eradicating poverty and extreme hunger, halving hunger by 2015. But most of the countries, including India, have not achieved tangible results on this front. With 2015 around the corner, the new government has a major task of addressing...

-The Indian Express Focusing on private asset creation will only exacerbate its design and implementation failures. In his budget speech, Arun Jaitley shied away from taking a tough stand on the MGNREGA. In a seemingly non-controversial comment, he emphasised that "wage employment would be provided under MGNREGA through works that are more productive, asset creating and substantively linked to agriculture and allied activities". The subtext, however, is controversial. As argued below, far...