-The Indian Express Dealing with the farm distress, while simultaneously creating enough non-farm job opportunities, is going to be a tough task. Call it bad luck or otherwise, the Narendra Modi government’s first year in office hasn’t been a really great one for agriculture and rural incomes. To start with, rainfall was deficient in both the south-west (June-September) and the north-east (October-December) monsoon seasons by over 12 per cent and 33 per...

-Down to Earth This decision is expected to address the delay in transfer of funds from the Centre to states A decision to transfer funds for India’s flagship employment guarantee scheme in real time will be taken soon. This is expected to end the procedural delay in fund transfer for the scheme to states, a factor known to be behind its poor implementation. It will enable states to get their share of...

-The Indian Express Poorly designed policies are largely to blame for farm distress Successive governments have transformed an unevenly prosperous rural society to one which is evenly distressed. Small and marginal farmers now feel worse off than the landless. Most suicides have taken place in the families of such farmers, especially those with no source of non-farm income. For the sense of desperation that now pervades rural India, all political parties are...

-DNA India's agriculture sector is thriving and can provide livelihood to millions more. False pictures form the main plank of the political debate on India's agriculture. One is that of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the other of the Congress. The two big political parties in the country agree with each other in believing that farmers and the landless folk in the villages are at the end of the tether, and...

-The Week Vagaries of the weather are not the only reason for Marathwada's agrarian crisis Three widows, two daughters and an overwhelming sense of grief occupy the house of the Palwes in Kekat Jalgaon in Paithan, Aurangabad. The house lost all its men there were three in the past three years. The Palwe widows, Yashoda, Chandrabhaga and Lakshmibai, and Yashoda's two daughters, Suman, 8, and Sarita, 6, live in a hut without...