-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...

-The Indian Express According to the Central Statistics Office, there were 24.95 crore households in India in 2011. If every household in the bottom 20 per cent is eligible for this income, this translates into a total expenditure of about Rs 3.6 lakh crore annually. When Congress president Rahul Gandhi announced that his party, if voted to power, would offer a minimum income of Rs 72,000 a year for the poorest 20...

-The Economic Times The IBC’s ‘fresh start’ process provides a systematic manner of waiving debts overseen by a judicial body. Historically, farm loan waivers have been used as a quick-fix solution to agrarian distress in India. Commonly used by political parties before elections, they have a long history at both central & state levels. However, the efficiency of waivers in actually resolving the debt burden of farmers is questionable. Waivers may work as...

-The Hindu With a strength of over 83,000, it procures 3.5 lakh litres of milk a day Tirupati: Before Shreeja entered her life, middle-aged Gangamma of Palamaner mandal in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district had to be content with the daily drudgery of maintaining her barn and selling the milk from her cows to a private supplier. And that came with the attendant problems of first realising payments from the buyer, and once...

-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) Land rights structurally escape women. This is a fundamental issue in understanding why women’s work as farmers is largely invisible. However, the large-scale migration of men towards pursuing other non-farm employment opportunities due to the worsening agrarian crisis has pushed more women into this sector. Work is not homogenous and neither are women or their work. Perceiving work through economic lens, the policy framework...