Their crops destroyed by frost between January 5 and 9, five farmers in Madhya Pradesh committed suicide while three are battling for their lives after consuming pesticide. The weather destroyed their standing crops of wheat, soyabean, gram, peas, opium and oranges in just five days. Their crops gone, farmers in the state, like their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh, also faced the prospect of defaulting on repayment of loan from banks...

Last fortnight, the Supreme Court agreed allegations of misappropriation of NREGS funds in Orissa are not without basis. Debabrata Mohanty tracks the scheme and the controversy it is in: FACT HUNT In May-June 2007, the Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS) surveyed how an MGNREGS programme was being carried out in the 100 poorest villages of Orissa’s “hunger bowl” of KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) districts, as well as the districts of Nuapada, Nabarangpur...

The pattern of land distribution has rendered rural landscape of UP disfavourable for farming. The precursor for this is the fragmentation of cultivable land into a large number of `small landholdings'. The process set under the demographic pressure, has caused marginalisation of a vast majority of farmers and posed a severe challenge to the prospects of rural economy and the growth of agriculture in future. Going by the official figure, UP...

Bhaggu, 65, says he can trace his memory back to when he was five. And he remembers the paradox that’s taunted him since: Of his village — Sohras, in northern Uttar Pradesh — being flooded every year and him having no water to drink. “They (government) distribute food, tarpaulin, kerosene, matchboxes but never made any arrangement for water,” says Bhaggu, a farm worker who goes by one name. “I think no...

The Yamuna may be in spate near Delhi, states like Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu may be soaked wet and the Mithi river -- the lifeline of Mumbai -- could be flowing at the brim, but for people in the East and Northeast India the thirst for rain prolongs. They wait for the rain gods to smile upon them. Overall, this is one of the best monsoon India has...