-India Water Portal Bankura in West Bengal receives 1000 mm of rainfall a year, yet thousands of adivasi farmers in the area were faced with irrigation issues -- until 'happas' came to the rescue. Amulya Soren couldn’t get stable yields in the kharif (monsoon) paddy in his farm. A member of the Santhal tribe, he was the beneficiary of a surplus land redistribution programme in Hirbandh block of Bankura, West Bengal....

-Hindustan Times Some global meteorological agencies have pointed to the rising risks of an El Nino weather pattern this year which can trigger a poor monsoon in India, potentially posing an immediate challenge for the Narendra Modi government. El Nino, literally “little boy” in Spanish, is a climate phenomenon marked by higher sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. Its effects vary, from storms in California to drought in Australia and India. ...

-AFP KANJHAWALA: Farmer Tarachand Mathur was one of millions of Indians who voted Narendra Modi into power last year, but the government's push to make it easier for big business to forcibly acquire land means he won't be backing the premier again. Mathur, 64, believes Modi has turned his back on the plight of farmers, many of whom have seen their crops devastated by unseasonal rains since the start of this year. "I...

-The Hindu Business Line The recent devastation of crops shows that the Indian economy continues to be a ‘gamble’ on the rain. But can India Meteorological Department’s new model make it predictable? Moisture wrecks a farmer's life. Since February this year, lakhs of farmers across 14 states were left with damaged crops. Unseasonal rains destroyed crops on 11 million hectares spread over Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab....

-Business Standard Subsidised farm credit also goes to companies There has been a massive surge in institutional agricultural credit over the past decade. But the benefit of that has not reached as much to farmers as it has to agri-businesses and companies branching out into agriculture-related activities. This is clear from an analytical study of agricultural credit by scholars at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, based on a Reserve Bank of...