-Livemint.com With India staring at the prospect of a poor monsoon, benign neglect of the agricultural sector continues to the present regime even as rural distress is peaking, warn analysts New Delhi: The signs were there as early as a year ago. When Narendra Modi took oath as Prime Minister, India was staring at the prospect of poor rains. The 12% deficit in monsoon sparked a drought that parched major farming...

-TheBetterIndia.com Here’s how farmers of Uttarakhand are following a traditional method of farming called Baranaja (or twelve grains) to sustain their crops even in harsh climatic conditions. When farmers in distress are given tempting offers to use chemicals that can give them bumper crops, many farmers fall prey to such offers. But these are the farmers of Tehri Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. They have been following their traditional method of rain fed...

-Channel NewsAsia With untimely heavy rains in central and north India leaving hectares of crops destroyed, debt-ridden farmers in the central Madhya Pradesh state have resorted to mortgaging and selling off their children. NEW DELHI: With untimely heavy rains in central and north India leaving hectares of crops destroyed, debt-ridden farmers in the central Madhya Pradesh state have resorted to mortgaging and selling off their children. There were previously reports of distressed farmers...

-The Indian Express Poorly designed policies are largely to blame for Farm distress Successive governments have transformed an unevenly prosperous rural society to one which is evenly distressed. Small and marginal farmers now feel worse off than the landless. Most suicides have taken place in the families of such farmers, especially those with no source of non-farm income. For the sense of desperation that now pervades rural India, all political parties are...

-The Indian Express Among the Modi government’s many hits was one crucial miss — agriculture. The Narendra Modi sarkar’s performance in the first year has at least five major achievements and one major miss. To ensure that this neglect does not become its Achilles’ heel, the Modi sarkar will have to focus on and initiate reforms in this weakest link in the chain — agriculture. Else, it will not let the Indian...