-Deccan Herald Many of India's agricultural practices have barely changed in decades. Reform is long overdue. Nearly a quarter of a century after India launched its first big liberalising reforms in 1991, setting off a new spurt of growth, one area of the country’s economy remains hardly touched: farming. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a 24-hour, state-run television channel for farmers in May, but has fostered no public debate about how to improve...

-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 Hindu There is no organised conspiracy against NGOs. It is in the nature of power to exercise greater control, and exempt itself from accountability. The recent changes in the rules governing foreign funding of NGOs under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) have been widely discussed. The last word on it will perhaps never be written. The UPA government initiated this and we see some concrete changes now. Sifting through the...

-The Telegraph Bhagalpur: An unusual demand of Rs 2 lakh by an insurance company in lieu of providing information to one Right to Information (RTI) activist from Bhagalpur has left the crusader in the lurch. Ajit Kumar Singh, the RTI activist, had sought information from the Life insurance Corporation (LIC) of India about the details of implementation of a scheme, mainly aimed at the economically weaker sections and also about the works...

-The Hindu Suicides decrease with increasing farm size and yield, but increase with the area under Bt Cotton’. The cultivation of Bt cotton, a genetically modified, insect-resistant cotton variety, is a risky affair for Indian farmers practising rain-fed agriculture, according to a latest study published by California-based agricultural scientists in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe. Annual suicide rates of farmers in rain-fed areas are directly related to increase in Bt cotton adoption, say...