-The Hindu India's small farmers have been struggling for centuries now and they need social and governmental action to change their future Of India's 121 million agricultural holdings, 99 million are with small and marginal farmers, with a land share of just 44 per cent and a farmer population share of 87 per cent. With multiple cropping prevalent, such farmers account for 70 per cent of all vegetables and 52 per cent...

-The Hindu The trajectory of the Narendra Modi government's education policy has been "disappointing and makes one apprehensive," said Dr. Devesh Kapur, Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on human capital, diaspora and political and economic change in developing countries. "It makes me apprehensive. I don't see any fundamental change in a view - common to our Left and...

-The Hindu Business Line   BARC finds 91.77 ppm of the material in DAP; fertiliser industry says it can't be blamed When the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) found high levels of uranium in fertiliser and soil samples from the Malwa region of Punjab last week, activists in the area were not surprised. They have long been warning about environmental contamination due to excessive phosphate fertiliser use. Local reports indicated that BARC found uranium...

-The Financial Express The government has identified 46 million hectare of agricultural land spread across 122 districts that is likely to be adversely impacted by extreme weather events and cause decline in farm output, agriculture minster Radha Mohan Singh on Tuesday said. "Uncertain and erratic rainfall, delay in onset of monsoon, agricultural droughts, excess rainfall events and other extreme weather events during crop growing seasons may affect agricultural productivity and profitability of...

-FirstPost.com What compelled a group of leading economists from India and abroad to shoot a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the government's job scheme - the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA? Is it to speak out against the government's desperation to throttle the scheme or did the economists sense any ulterior motive behind the government's move? A section of prominent Indian economists working out of the country or...