Till recently agricultural production in the current crop year was expected to be adversely affected by drought situation in more than 10 states, apart from hailstorms and excessive rainfall that happened in March. However, if one were to believe a recent forecast made by the Ministry of Agriculture, the overall foodgrain production in the country this crop year is anticipated to remain almost the same as last year. In 2014-15,...

Although the focus of erstwhile UPA and the present NDA government has been to achieve higher economic growth by reaping the 'demographic dividend', a recent report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) informs us that a substantial chunk of the population underwent ageing during the last 60 years. The report entitled Elderly in India: Profile and Programmes 2016 from CSO (that comes under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) shows...

-Hindustan Times "Most of the movement in the World Press Freedom Index… is indicative of a climate of fear and tension combined with increasing control over newsrooms by governments and private-sector interests." - the RSF website India has ranked abysmally low at 133 among 180 countries in the latest annual World Press Freedom Index which says Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems “indifferent” to the threats against journalists. The rankings, which are released annually, are...

-Economic and Political Weekly The patterns of suicide in India are quite different to those observed in industrialised societies. Those differences must lead us to question many generalisations which almost approach sociological "law" such as the protection against suicide afforded by marriage. This paper contrasts Media Coverage of farmer suicides in India with the near total neglect of the suicides of housewives, though there are more than three housewife suicides for...

Amidst the prevailing gloominess over agrarian crisis, a recently released report says that the growth rate of agricultural output in both India and China were the same during 2008-2013. The agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) of both these countries on an average grew at 3.3 percent per annum during that period. The latest available data from the 2016 Global Food Policy Report, however, indicates that the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka...