Right time for policy reform The government is set to face disappointment on its expectation that the fertiliser subsidy will go down sharply this year due to a softening of international prices of fertilisers. It now appears almost certain that the total payable subsidy in 2009-10 may be around Rs 70,000 crore, against the budgetary provision of under Rs 50,000 crore. Since the government has made it clear that no additional...

India needs to initiate a number of steps to manage the emerging situation.  After three consecutive good years, agricultural production has faltered in the last two years. There was a fall in production to the tune of 1.6 per cent in 2008-2009 compared to the previous year. This year, again, agricultural production is likely to be down by 2 per cent or more. The deceleration in the growth of foodgrain...

Sahyadris have been documenting the changing climate for 40 years The latest joke among the Mahadeo Koli tribals living in the Bhimashankar area of Maharashtra’s Pune district is: “Ovni zali ka? (Have you transplanted your paddy?)” In the rain drenched Sahyadri range, where the main food crop is paddy, the unseasonal rains brought on by cyclone Phyan in late November have caused the harvested crop of fragrant Raibhog paddy to sprout...

The key message of the book is that agriculture in South Asia is quite heavily stressed due to A complex set of socio-economic, agro-climatic, and hydrological factors WATER, AGRICULTURE AND SUSTAINABLE WELL-BEING: Edited by Unai Pascual, Amita Shah, Jayanta Bandyopadhyay; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 750. “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less...

The Copenhagen summit on global warming and climate change has commenced. Instead of a leadership role, we will now be playing a followers’ role. We fell behind the emerging consensus curve. We held on for too long to outmoded positions of merely harping on per capita emission and common-differentiated obligation while disregarding many other significant factors. The recent decision of China, announcing a 40 per cent cut in its energy...