-The Indian Express Dairy farmers in Gujarat, till recently, were relatively insulated from the crisis faced by those growing cotton, groundnut or potatoes. Rajkot/ New Delhi: AFTER COTTON and groundnut, it’s milk that is turning sour for Gujarat’s farmers. A crash in global skimmed milk powder (SMP) rates, coupled with surging procurement by dairy unions affiliated to the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), has led to an unprecedented glut. In the last...

-The Hindu Many States have initiated ‘reforms’ of the public distribution system that are hurting millions of people India’s public distribution system (PDS) is in danger of being derailed in several States across the country. Recent disruptions of the PDS have taken different forms, from compulsory biometric authentication to so-called direct benefit transfer (DBT). The consequences are alarming, but tend to go unreported. Biometric mix-ups Jharkhand is a prime example of this problem. By...

-The Asian Age The increase in the income has also halted migration of local people to other states in search of work. Bhubaneswar: Grappling with financial problems because of non-remunerative character of their age-old agricultural practices, villagers living in hilly areas of Odisha’s Gajapati district have suddenly found enough money coming to their pockets by adoption of traditional methods of irrigation. Sourcing water in the Diversion Based Irrigation (DBI) system from the streams...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: Economist Kaushik Basu on Friday regretted the rise of a "narrow-minded" approach and "hatred" in the country. Basu, the C. Marks professor of international studies and professor of economics at Cornell University, made the observation while delivering a lecture on"economics and morality" in memory of Swami Lokeswarananda of the Ramakrishna Mission. "In today's India, we are getting narrow-minded. There is hatred among people," rued the former chief economist of the...

-The Indian Express Gauraksha is fine, but who will protect our crop from stray cattle, ask farmers. Jhanshi: With Rs 1.5 lakh, a farmer can buy three Holstein Friesian crossbred cows, each giving 4,000 litres or more of milk annually. But Rs 1.5 lakh is roughly what Bhupendra Patel has spent on fencing his 10-acre farm at Dhawari village in Jhansi district’s Tahrauli tehsil. The seven-feet-high barbed-wire enclosure is only to prevent...