-The Hindu With sowing of kharif crops lagging by over 86 lakh hectares compared to last year, owing to an erratic southwest monsoon and the average water level in major reservoirs declining by 2 per cent (to 59 per cent of last year’s storage) over the previous week, the country faces a grim situation. The area under rice, pulses, oilseeds and coarse cereals is less than what it was last year. Earlier, the...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

The dreaded El Niño weather phenomenon is set to appear during the second half of the southwest monsoon, which may cause less-than-expected rains in August and September. El Niño had earlier hit the Indian monsoon in 2009, when the country faced a severe drought. This time, its impact is not clear as of now, but if there are excessive breaks in the monsoon, crops of paddy, oilseeds and pulses could...

It is mostly caused by deliberate neglect and designed failure of the way we manage water and land It’s drought time again. Nothing new in this announcement. Each year, first we have crippling droughts between December and June, and then devastating floods in the next few months. It’s a cycle of despair, which is more or less predictable. But this is not an inevitable cycle of nature we must live...

The Government of India has formally launched the news Guidelines of the MGNAREGA based on the Mihir Shah Committee report. The news guidelines include many new works under conservation activities and it strengthens the hands of the village panchayats and gram sabhas. However, the list of works does not include the activities under the system of rice intensification (SRI) which encourages scientific method of paddy cultivation with better yield in...