-The Guardian In a village in India's poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no herbicide. Is this one solution to world food shortages? Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-east India and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually...

-Outlook UPA’s populist trumpcard of 2008—the farm loan waiver—has fallen short of its intended target, as a CAG audit throws up The Scheme     2008 Union finance minister P. Chidambaram announces farmer debt waiver and relief scheme in budget; PM Manmohan Singh writes to beneficiaries “seeking their support”     Rs 52,275 cr Total money that was disbursed to eligible farmers across the nation as part of loan waiver scheme     Rs 50,000 The loan...

-The Business Standard Govt's unbalanced food policy has disastrous results Consider the following discrepancies in the farm sector. The country is now the world’s largest exporter of rice, a crop grown with huge quantities of scarce water and heavily subsidised fertilisers. At the same time, it is the leading importer of pulses, which require very little water to grow and fortify the land with nitrogen to reduce the fertiliser need even...

-Economic and Political Weekly The recent debate on the acceptability of foreign direct investment in the retail sector in India has been mostly political. It is necessary to look into the pros and cons of FDI in retail from a purely economic point of view. This article identifi es the safeguards that should be undertaken before allowing giant multinationals to function in the country. Abhirup Sarkar (abhirup@isical.ac.in) is with the Indian Statistical...

-Frontline Farmers protest against the Central clearance for coal bed methane exploration in Mannargudi, Tamil Nadu, as they fear it will devastate agriculture in Tiruvarur and Thanjavur districts.  THE woes of the delta farmers of Tamil Nadu are far from over. While the Cauvery tangle continues unresolved, they fear the proposed multi-crore project for commercial exploration and exploitation of coal bed methane (CBM) in the Mannargudi block of Tiruvarur district will prove...