-IANS Panaji: Factors as innocuous as the humble grain-carrying sack to the mighty El Nino could have a varying impact on grain production and delivery this year, experts suggest. Detailed presentations made at a recently-concluded 'Global Grain and Feed Forum' conference in Goa suggest that the occurrence of the El Nino phenomenon in June could to some extent rob India of its monsoon, but also note that poor quality sacks are also...

-Down to Earth As June ends, the monsoon, it turns out, is deficient by 40 per cent. Despite the forecast of its revival in July, it is a concern for India's rainfed areas that account for significant foodgrain production and also host the largest number of farmers in the country. More than 100 districts are officially "chronic drought-affected" areas. Why have we not been able to drought-proof them? On June 28 Prime...

-The Indian Express Most of the dynamism of the Indian economy comes from its states. They must be given more room to chart their growth trajectories In the euphoria surrounding the election results, it is tempting to avoid facing up to the harsh realities of making development happen. Even for those who characterise the election as "the dawn after the dusk", in the new light of day, India's development challenges remain essentially...

-The Business Standard   How a law to conserve groundwater led to a better paid and better organised migrant workforce Ludhiana: For some years now, Punjab's fields have lain fallow through the searing dry heat of May; but come June's steamy humidity, small bands of lithe, slender men from Bihar fan out across the waterlogged paddy fields, transplanting rice saplings with fluid efficiency. Bihar's paddy planters have frequented Punjab since the 1960s when rice...

-The Business Standard     They were unimpressed by the UPA's misguided socialism, but they worry about the new regime's free-market orientation too Consider this paradox. The Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was decimated in the elections in spite of several years of good monsoon and rising agricultural production. Consider another paradox. This was the regime that implemented policies that were presumed to be pro-farmer: the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the...