-Zee News Agriculture is consistently losing its importance in India's economic growth. The agriculture sector contributes to just 15 percent of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but over 50 percent of the population is still dependent on it. The farm sector, including forestry and fishing, grew by 3.2 percent in the quarter ending September, as compared o 3.8 percent in previous quarter and 4.7 percent in 2013-14. For the entire financial...

-Business Standard The ordinance has returned near absolute power of discretion in land acquisition, except in tribal areas, into the hands of the bureaucracy yet again Even after the National Democratic Alliance's land ordinance, governments will still need the consent of tribal gram sabhas in all Schedule V and VI areas of the country before acquiring land for themselves or for public-private projects. While the land ordinance has done away with the need...

-Economic and Political Weekly   This paper counters negative advocacy about the food subsidy, the public distribution system, and farm price supports. It argues that the public food supply chain for market intervention has a favourable impact on the cost-benefit ratio, poverty reduction, calorie consumption by the poor and productivity-led agricultural growth. The paper proposes reforms for the six pillars of the public food supply chain. These include: an alternative poverty line...

-The Hindustan Times Mumbai: In the past two decades, the National Crime Records Bureau has recorded 60,750 farmer suicides in the state. This means more than 3,000 farmers have killed themselves every year, reflecting a deepening agrarian crisis untouched by policies and subsidies doled out by the government. To get the state back on its feet, the new BJP government needs to start from agriculture and allied sectors. In the past...

Despite high prices of fruits and vegetables, India's area under horticultural crops - mainly fruits, vegetables, spices and flowers - has doubled in around twenty years (between 1991-92 and 2012-13). This has resulted in increase in production of horticultural crops nearly threefold (2.8 times). A new report from the Ministry of Agriculture says that the area under horticultural crops during this period rose from 12.77 million hectares to 23.69 million...