-Financial Chronicle India's independence in 1947 had the great Bengal famine as its backdrop. During the Bengal famine of 1942-43, over three million children, women and men died of starvation. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, therefore, said in 1947, "Everything else can wait; but not agriculture". This commitment led to the initiation of several programmes in the field of agriculture, such as extension of irrigation facilities, establishment of seed corporations,...

-The Hindu     While the stagnation in women's ability to control their own fate is disappointing, some of the other gender indicators are downright alarming On International Women's Day, the Election Commission of India held a special campaign to bring women voters to the polls. Although men and women vote at a more or less similar rate in State elections, women are 6-8 percentage points behind in the Lok Sabha elections where national...

-The Guardian Rice conservationist Debal Deb grapples with 'mindless Indian elite' to reintroduce genetically diverse, drought-tolerant varieties   Fifty years ago, every Indian village would probably have grown a dozen or more rice varieties that grew nowhere else. Passed down from generation to generation and family to family, there would have been a local variety for every soil and taste - rice that would grow well in droughts or deep floods, which had...

-DNA Elections 2014 are around the corner. And when elections draw nearer, the Government suddenly wakes up and thinks of its duties towards the people. This year is no exception. Whether it is the one-rank-one-pension for the retired defence personnel or the legal monthly entitlement of 5kg of wheat/rice/millet for poor households under the national Food Security Act or the announcement of a 7th Pay Commission along with a DA instalment...

-The Hindu Business Line The focus of land reforms should change from ceilings to minimum size A significant 72 per cent of farmers ‘like' farming as a profession, according to a recent nationwide survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). This is greater than the 60 per cent figure reported in an official 2003 National Sample Survey round. True, the two surveys may not be entirely comparable...