-Frontline NAIB SINGH hanged himself a fortnight ago in the land he had been tilling for five years at Bareh village in Mansa district of Punjab. He had hoped for a successful rabi wheat crop, but unseasonal rains reduced him to further penury. The 25-year-old left behind a debt burden of Rs.10 lakh for his family. His mother, Mahinder Kaur, does not know whether to mourn her son's death or lament...

-Frontline   The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...

-ABPLive.in In the midst of the widespread damage to standing crops from unseasonal rains, a National Crop Income Insurance Scheme has been introduced on a pilot basis. What is being perceived as a long-term solution to the prevailing agrarian crisis, and is being pushed as an insurance against weather-related disasters as well as provide an assurance against any income shocks will only end up acerbating the crisis. The cure being suggested is...

-DNA 38 districts under Green Revolution II affected by slow poison Indian government's ambitious project Green Revolution-II (GR-II) to promote growing rice in the Eastern states of India is bringing arsenic to your plates. As many as 38 districts spreading across six states out of the seven states where the scheme is being implemented are reported to be affected by arsenic. These states are Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand...

-The Indian Express Indian farmers are under stress this year. Earlier, many of them lost their crops in the kharif season, which was almost a drought with monsoon rains falling 12 per cent below their long-period average. Now unseasonal rains have impacted them adversely in the rabi season. Agri-GDP growth this year, expected to be a meagre 1.1 per cent before the unseasonal rains, may fall flat to just zero, if...