-Reuters Millions of people in Maharashtra are at serious risk of hunger after two years of low rainfall, coupled with poor management of water resources, have left dams empty, farmland parched and cattle emaciated, aid agencies warned on Thursday. Maharashtra -- one of the country's biggest producers of sugar, pulses, cotton and soybeans -- is reeling from the worst drought in more than four decades after receiving less than 50 percent of...

-The Telegraph Dairy farmer Nivrutti Bhagwan Gaikwad, 42, wanted to take no chances with nature. A hardworking and enterprising man, he built his cattle shed scientifically in consultation with livestock experts, installing air coolers and filtered-water pipelines for his cattle, building separate compartments for the cows and the buffaloes, and erecting a fodder godown. He used high-quality cans to collect and transport the 180 litres of milk his 50 cows and buffaloes produced...

-Outlook India has long been the sleeping giant of global agriculture. But its misguided policies while boosting short-term output, yet may transform India into a food importer After decades on the sidelines of international agricultural trade, India was poised last year to become a major food supplier, overtaking traditional exporters of food grain and meat. This could prove to be flash in the pan. The sudden rise and fall of India...

-Live Mint Farmers resisting India's biggest FDI deal are paying a heavy price for their stand In June 2005, the Orissa government signed the country's biggest foreign direct investment deal yet with the South Korean steel manufacturer Posco for a $12 billion (around `65,856 crore) plant near Paradip in the mineral-rich state. Livelihoods in eight existing agricultural and fishing villages were to give way for the project that was intended to be...

-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...