-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Providing income security to farmers and boosting investment in agriculture are the two things that are needed to help Indian farmers in distress, said noted agricultural economist Ashok Gulati on Monday. “While there can’t be two opinions about the farmers’ plight in our country, increasing minimum support price (MSP) cannot be the solution. We may have to bring in science and our understanding to solve their...

-The Hindu A national policy for internal migration is needed to improve earnings and enable an exit from poverty Though migration is expected to enhance consumption and lift families out of absolute poverty at the origin, it is not free from distress — distress due to unemployment or underemployment in agriculture, natural calamities, and input/output market imperfections. Internal migration can be driven by push and/or pull factors. In India, over the recent...

-Frontline.inJean Dreze is a well-known Indian economist working in the field of "development economics". Born in Belgium, he studied mathematical economics at the University of Essex and completed his PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute (New Delhi) in 1982.He has taught at the London School of Economics and the Delhi School of Economics and is currently visiting professor at Ranchi University as well as honorary professor at the Delhi School...

-The Hindu Farmers in Punjab continue to burn paddy stubble every winter despite a ban on the practice. Jacob Koshy and Vikas Vasudeva report on the compulsions that drive farmers to adopt this method of clearing their fields and the efforts by the State administration to wean them off it The highway to Bibipur, a hamlet about 50 km from Patiala town, cuts through acres of paddy. Some of the rice stalk...

-Firstpost.com Ludhiana: North India’s smog problem — a cause of much tension between states — seems to have left politicians, farmers and even experts stumped. In Punjab, the government’s measures to tackle stubble-burning have reaped little dividend, as the farmers, many of them debt-ridden, say that at the end of the harvesting season, they are still left with no option but to set paddy straw on fire in order to clear their...