-The Financial Express The government has identified 46 million hectare of agricultural land spread across 122 districts that is likely to be adversely impacted by extreme weather events and cause decline in farm output, agriculture minster Radha Mohan Singh on Tuesday said. "Uncertain and erratic rainfall, delay in onset of monsoon, agricultural droughts, excess rainfall events and other extreme weather events during crop growing seasons may affect agricultural productivity and profitability of...

-The Tribune The outlook for all things smart is opening up, including Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). Varanasi, set to develop as a Smart City, will be a lighthouse for sectors seeking sustainable ways to handle demographic pressures, finite environmental resources and climate change. The Finance Minister's budget speech has promised a hundred smart cities. With urban India well covered, it is the turn now of smart agriculture, equipped both to enhance food...

-The Hindu Jalna (Maharashtra): An angry silence greets one on entering the village of Dhasalgaon in Jalna district. Perpetuating agrarian crises for the last three years have made the once-proud farmers of this village poor. Despite the newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party government's announcement that it seek a Rs. 4,500-crore package from the Centre, farmers in Jalna have wearied of the lip service that Mumbai's mandarins have been paying them for the...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The runaway growth in states of subsidised solar pumps, which provide quality energy at near-zero marginal cost, can pose a bigger threat of groundwater over-exploitation than free power has done so far. The best way to meet this threat is by paying farmers to "grow" solar power as a remunerative cash crop. Doing so can reduce pressure on aquifers, cut the subsidy burden on electricity companies, reduce...

-Press Release from Centre for Budget Analysis (CBGA) and Jan Awaaz New Delhi, 29 November 2014: There have been a number of media reports recently around possible cuts in Union Budget allocations for the current fiscal 2014-15 in case of social sector programmes, i.e. reductions in allocations in the Revised Estimates (RE) for 2014-15 as compared to the Budget Estimates (BE) that were made in July this year. This issue deserves...