Agrarian crisis continued in Bengal with farmers continuing to commit suicide after failing to sell their crops. The latest such incident was reported from Malda district in North Bengal, police said. Dayal Chandra Burman a middle-aged peasant committed suicide on Sunday morning at Gajole block in Malda district after he failed to repay Rs 30,000 taken as loan from moneylenders for paddy cultivation. He failed to sell his crops for the...

India must not obsess with how fast its economy is growing and instead pay more attention to its human development indicators which are worse than even that of Bangladesh, Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen said. Sen, known among his peers as the Conscience of Economics, said slower growth is not a good enough reason for national gloom. If India really must feel upset, it should be because the country is...

Agrarian distress and growing awareness among farmers, tired of poll-time rhetoric and freebies, may make it tougher for political parties to woo this large electorate with worn-out promises in the upcoming assembly polls.  Ahead of elections in five states, including in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous and politically-critical state, many farmers say they are ready to pay market rates for power and other inputs provided there is reliable supply.  Swarn Singh,...

-The Business Standard Recent reports of the acquisition of a foreign rock phosphate mine by an Indian fertiliser manufacturer through a joint venture with a Japanese firm — in order to secure the raw material supply to its domestic phosphatic plant — should be viewed as part of a trend that needs to be sustained. India is critically dependent on fertiliser imports, since the availability of raw material for indigenous production...

-The Tribune   Industry is the first to be blamed for pollution. However, in Punjab, which has only a modest industrial base, a major part of the total pollution comes from agriculture. The Green Revolution, with its concept of heavy use of fertilisers, pesticides, and other chemicals, has caused a serious imbalance in the environment. To raise levels of production, farmers often indulge in injudicious use of such inputs, the use of which...