-The Indian Express It is said the pollution from burning paddy straw is a factor in Delhi's poor air quality. Chandigarh: The burning of paddy straw continues unabated in both Punjab and Haryana with authorities in both the states unable to check the menace. With the harvesting season at the fag end, the farmers are now clearing their fields by burning the paddy straw causing air pollution. It is said the pollution from burning...

-The Indian Express Government cannot afford to wait any longer to address the building agricultural distress. The government and the political class seem oblivious to a deepening farm crisis, resulting from back-to-back monsoon failures and falling crop prices. One indicator of the growing agrarian distress is farmer suicides, no longer a phenomenon confined to Vidarbha or Telangana. The current year has seen farmers even in states like Karnataka, Odisha and Madhya...

-The New Indian Express BHUBANESWAR: In a State where agriculture continues to be the mainstay of livelihood for the majority, the spate of farmer suicides has not really come as a surprise. Or has it? With agriculture turning into a non-remunerative business and State’s farm sector remaining largely rain-fed, climatic changes have been sounding the warning bells but the Government saw no danger. Its self-assuredness that minimum support price (MSP) only is...

-Asian Age Many years ago, when I was doing my Ph.D. in genetics at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi, I did my research on mung and urad daal, unlike most of my compatriots who did their research either on the major cereals like wheat, rice and maize, or on vegetables. Pulses was a neglected field of research then, as it is now. It was a crop of the marginal areas...

-Hindustan Times Small and marginal farmers comprise 85% of the land holdings in India. Social protection is a survival tool for the rural poor, who have no easy access to wage labour. India recognised the need for social protection early on and introduced a slew of social protection programmes like the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) provides 100 days of assured labour wages...