-The Indian Express Indian agriculture has made remarkable progress since 1947 and credit for this goes mainly to the farmer. Now we need to repay our debt to the agricultural community As India celebrates its 68th year of independence, it is time to pause and look back at the major challenges we have faced since Independence and how they were overcome, as well as at the mistakes and follies we committed...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmers' unions and political parties have been demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan minimum support price (cost plus 50%) to address agrarian crisis and farmers' distress. But they have not raised demands for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers, which have the potential to provide lasting solutions. Ranjit Singh Ghuman (ghumanrs@yahoo.co.uk) is a Nehru SAIL Chair Professor, Centre for Research in Rural and...

-The Indian Express We can add millions of hectares to irrigated land without building a single new dam. We just need to adopt a different method of managing the water already stored in them. One of the drivers of India’s irrigation sector has been the construction of large dams on our rivers, which Jawaharlal Nehru famously described as “the temples of modern India”. While these dams have helped increase India’s irrigated...

-Tehelka Last year’s Red Fort rhetoric has not been matched by action on the ground, with separate toilets for students remaining elusive as ever One part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on Independence Day this year can safely be predicted: the reeling out of statistics to prove that the Swachh Bharat campaign is sweeping the nation. The cleanliness drive launched on 2 October, 2014, was announced from the ramparts of the...

-The Indian Express It is necessary to rescue public policy from its elitist bias, bring agriculture to its centre There is seldom any Independence Day speech where the prime minister, from the ramparts of the Red Fort, does not thank the jawans and kisans for their heroic role in securing our borders and ensuring food security. This year is unlikely to be different. Recall Lal Bahadur Shastri’s famous slogan, “Jai Jawan,...