-The Economic Times None of the standard explanations quite explain the rise in food prices India has seen: pronounced since 2006 and alarming after 2010. Drought and poor rains? The country has seen good aggregate rainfall in most of those years. Spike in global prices? Those were high in 2007-08, not now. Fragmented value chains that allow middlemen to grab large margins? The value chain has always been fragmented. Growth has slowed...

-The Hindu Business Line The national sample survey shows there has been a substantial shift from paid or recognised work to unpaid domestic activities for both rural and urban women There has been much discussion on the evidence from recent NSS large sample surveys on employment, of the significant decline in women's workforce participation rates. Various explanations have been offered for this, including rising real wages that have allowed women in poor households...

-The Hindu The Planning Commission needed to be returned to its first purposes, to its transparent and audacious planning for an India progressing without old enervations and new injustices to prosperity. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. The 18th century nursery rhyme, its original probably a riddle, is loved for the one image it invokes - a great fall. The picture of a dumpy egg, of a being...

-India Today Geography of rice and wheat has been transformed with Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh generating surpluses Almost 50 years ago, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri went on air to appeal to Indians to skip a meal a day. Foodgrain supplies had come under strain after the 1965 drought, and the patriotic ethos cautioned against over-consumption: what you ate left that much less for the rest. Today, it is...

-The Business Standard Rainfall shortage in Rajasthan to hit summer and winter crops Alwar (Rajasthan): Khajura Ram has an agonising fortnight ahead. If it does not rain in the next 15 days, he not only will have a poor summer bajra crop; his winter wheat or mustard will suffer as well because it will have to be planted late. "By the middle of August, the bajra crop should have been ready for harvesting...