In April, India’s Planning Commission accepted recommendations put forth by the so-called Tendulkar Committee on a new poverty headcount for the country. Constituted by the Planning Commission under economist Suresh D Tendulkar, the committee, after four years and a new methodology, arrived at a new figure for the number of Indians living below the poverty line: 37.2 percent, ten points higher than the previous official figure. With the government’s subsequent...

A crop-killing fungus is spreading out of Africa towards the world’s great wheat-growing areas IT IS sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. Wheat rust has spread silently and speedily by 5,000 miles in...

SUKHRAM Gopal, a farmer from Bagli village in Devas district in Madhya Pradesh, relies on gut feel and tradition to be doubly sure that the rains will bless him with a bountiful harvest. On the day of the Gangaur festival, which typically falls in March-April and is a celebration of the monsoon and harvesting, Gopal starts sowing wheat. “Nine days later, if the seeds grow in a uniform manner, we...

India’s annual monsoon rains should revive in two days after a 10-day lull, the weather office said on Monday, raising hopes for a pick-up in soybean planting in the world’s biggest edible oils buyer. The June-September rainfall, which irrigates 60% of the country’s farms and drives rural incomes, is vital for the trillion-dollar economy. A healthy rainfall despite the slow progress could help Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tame high double-digit food...

Furious debates among policymakers about the proposed national food security law largely revolve around its financial repercussions. The Planning Commission is finally coming around to accepting the Tendulkar Committee’s estimates of 37.2 per cent BPL population or 8.5 crore BPL households. The fiscal burden in implementing the food security law for 37.5 per cent BPL population, with each household being provided 35 kg food grains, is estimated to be Rs...