-Down to Earth In the Vidarbha region which is facing 30 per cent rainfall deficit in the first half the monsoon, the situation is very grim The drought in Maharashtra is worsening. With 15 talukas just declared drought-hit, 136 out of a total 355 talukas in the state are now officially reeling under drought. They have received rainfall that is less than 50 per cent of average in the state. Moreover, 15 districts...
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Inflation: Three reasons why rising food prices could be here to stay -M Rajshekhar
-The Economic Times None of the standard explanations quite explain the rise in food prices India has seen: pronounced since 2006 and alarming after 2010. Drought and poor rains? The country has seen good aggregate rainfall in most of those years. Spike in global prices? Those were high in 2007-08, not now. Fragmented value chains that allow middlemen to grab large margins? The value chain has always been fragmented. Growth has slowed...
More »Can India feed 1.7 billion people by 2050? -Cecilia Tortajada & Asit K Biswas
-The Business Standard In a country where 35 to 40 per cent of food is not consumed, the government urgently needs to reduce wastage to an acceptable level By current estimates, India's total population will be similar to China's by 2028, 1.45 billion. By 2050, India's population is expected to reach 1.7 billion, which will then be equivalent to nearly that of China and the US combined. A fundamental question then...
More »Maharashtra's irrigation system tied in knots -Aman Sethi
-The Business Standard Agrarian crisis in the state appears as much a failure of planning as the result of a shortage of rain On a dry and cloudless day this month, Balbir Krishna Ingde sat by the Ujjani Dam in the Krishna basin, one of Maharashtra's largest irrigation projects, and confronted the problem of scarcity amid presumed abundance. "The water is filling up the reservoir. If only they could release it into the...
More »Right reasons to get hitched -TV Somanathan and Gulzar Natarajan
-The Indian Express A headlong rush into PPPs will only leave a trail of disputes, renegotiations, corruption. The conventional wisdom in India on public-private partnerships (PPPs) is that they help governments raise capital to meet large infrastructure investment targets. But this rationale for promoting PPPs does not stand on strong foundations. There are three potential reasons for supporting PPPs. First, they enable governments to access more capital without visibly breaching fiscal targets. In...
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