West Bengal: An agrarian crisis looms over the State as farmers commit suicide in spite of a bumper crop. THE topic of suicide figured repeatedly in Safar Molla's conversations with his neighbours a few days before his death. The 18-year-old marginal farmer from Kaltikuri village in Bardhaman district's Bhatar block talked about it quite casually, in fact even jocularly. Everybody in the village knew he was up to his neck in...

Handloom weavers in Andhra Pradesh are in a crisis brought on by policy blindness and the emphasis on powerlooms. WHEN P. Pulliah, a weaver in the traditional cotton handloom centre of Chirala in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, describes the sarees he crafts, thread by delicate thread, his face lights up with joy. He animatedly explains that the sarees have a border on both sides. And they are fully embellished, he...

India is likely to see record foodgrain production in the current year on good rains, the second advance estimate of the agriculture ministry showed on Friday. Output of total foodgrains comprising rice, wheat, coarse cereals and pulses was seen at 250.42 million tonnes (mt) in the July-June crop year of 2011-12, up 2.3% from the year-ago 244.78 mt, the data showed. This is significant as the optimistic projection comes just ahead of...

Sending a clear message that the 2G spectrum allocation of 2008 is a scam and not the result of a government policy decision, the Supreme Court today quashed the grant of 122 UAS licences and allocation of spectrum to 12 private companies. Even as the trial in the 2G case progresses in a Patiala House trial court in Delhi, a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly held...

Opposing the West Bengal government's proposal to do away with the right to strike of its employees, major Central trade unions have decided to support the government employees' unions in their agitation for protection of their rights. Describing the comments of State Labour Minister Purnendu Basu as unfortunate, Gurudas Dasgupta, general secretary of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and MP of the Communist party of India (CPI), said the right...