-DNA Talking about her late son Sampatrao, Gayabai's voice breaks. "He was cleaning a well to increase its depth and width. Suddenly, the manual lift that was carrying the boulders and mud from the well fell on his head. He succumbed to his injury even before reaching the hospital," she says. Gayabai Murkute (75) lost her son Sampatrao (45) in an accident three years ago. Same year the rain stopped falling. Her...

-Livemint.com Low support price, land acquisition bill, short supply of fertilizers among triggers for clashes, shows analysis New Delhi: Security agencies have warned the government of growing farmer unrest across the country as rural distress worsens. There has been a spurt in clashes among farmers and government agencies, particularly in states such as Maharashtra, which is facing acute rural distress. Till June end, 74 incidents were reported nationwide, twice the number recorded...

-Livemint.com It is hypocritical of the US to give price support to its farmers while denying it to the world’s poorest farmers The tenth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), to be held in Nairobi on 15-18 December, is already mired in discord, with negotiators unable to agree on a mandated post-Bali work programme. At issue are US and European Union (EU) proposals to scrap the texts agreed to thus...

-The Times of India TRICHY: An invention to convert human urine into fertilizer for banana cultivation in 2012 by a principal scientist of the National Research Centre for Banana (NRCB) here has not gained traction among farmers. Moreover, the central and state governments have not evinced any interest on the invention for the reasons best known to them. Farmers too are unwilling to adopt the invention which could reduce the cost...

-Livemint.com Water availability has not deteriorated only because of the poor monsoon Amartya Sen showed in his seminal work on famines that mass starvation is not necessarily the result of inadequate food supply. He opened up new areas of inquiry that focussed on what have come to be known as entitlement failures. Sen has famously argued that human mistakes forced people into starvation in Bengal in 1943 even though food production in...