-The Hindu Business Line Drought conditions in peninsular India highlight familiar policy failures Recent BusinessLine reports have highlighted the harrowing conditions of water scarcity in peninsular India, with the monsoon still about three months away. Scientists and specialists have observed that 40 per cent of the country’s area is reeling under drought, of which 16-17 per cent is severe. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and Gujarat are in a...

-Hindustan Times Farming must become sustainable since agriculturists are struggling to build resilience against many threats I spent international women’s day in Mangalagiri, in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, with Usha Rani. As a single mother for 17 years, she has raised two children (now in second-year college and in high school). Three years ago, she switched to natural farming. On less than half an acre, she practises multicropping, growing maize, banana,...

-TheWire.in The delta has shrunk by 20% because of diversion of land and climate change. Water-intensive agriculture and industrial practices are adding to the problem. Despite being one of the oldest water-regulator structures in the world that is still functional, the Kallanai dam or the Grand Anicut looks almost empty with not much water to regulate. Located near Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu, it was built across river Kaveri around 2000 years ago...

  Growth in rural wages not only indicates economic prosperity of the masses, it is also considered important so as to generate effective demand for goods and services, which is produced by various sectors of the economy. When money becomes available in the hands of rural workers due to government spending on programmes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), it generates demand for commodities. The production of commodities...

-Down to Earth Farmers living in tribal areas in Jharkhand alleged that industrialists and the government are conspiring to ruin diverse traditional seeds and crops Farmers from Jharkhand’s Singhbhum district, a tribal area, alleged that the government and industrialists are trying to destroy their traditional knowledge of agriculture and looting cultivable land. This happened on the last day of a conference held on ‘Traditional agriculture: challenges and possibilities’ at Chaibasa this month. These...