-Down to Earth Every rupee spent on weather forecasting fetches 50-fold economic gains to below poverty line farming families   A survey by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has shown that timely delivery of weather advisories to farmers had a significant impact on their income. The survey was done to gauge the economic impact of India’s investments on the National Monsoon Mission (NMM) and High Performance Computing Facilities (HPC). It...

-Society for Social and Economic Research The economic reforms which were started in 1991 shifted the focus of fertilizer policies away from playing a leading role in building the fertilizer industry and ensuring the availability of fertilizers at affordable prices to farmers. Under the neo-liberal policy framework, reducing the fiscal burden of fertilizer subsidies and the foreign exchange burden of fertilizer-related imports became the overriding concerns of the state.  Interestingly, the post-liberalisation...

-The Hindu The APMC Bypass Bill leaves too much to the benevolence of private players Three farm bills — the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill (commonly referred to as the APMC Bypass Bill), and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill — were cleared by Parliament amid protests from the Opposition. Sudha Narayanan (Associate Professor at the...

-Down to Earth Study can go long way in pinpointing future hot spots for climate-induced migration Human migration due to changing climate happens primarily in middle income and agricultural-dependent countries, a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on September 14, 2020, has said. The impacts of climate change that caused migration of people were mainly changes in temperature, rainfall variability and rapid onset events like storms, cyclones and floods, the...

-Hindustan Times The international study includes data from Indian rural areas while measuring the impact of some weather events on suicides. Not only drought but flooding or even extreme rainfall leading to excess water availability is linked to higher cases of suicides among those above the age of 15 years in rural areas, a new study has suggested. In an analysis of 9,456 suicides between 2001 and 2013 in randomly selected rural areas,...