On a day the Trinamool Congress celebrated the first anniversary of the announcement of the 2011 Assembly polls results, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said here on Sunday that there has been an average of one farmer suicide every week since Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's government came to power in West Bengal.  “Up to 2011 in States like West Bengal and Kerala there was no news of...

-PTI   Agriculture experts expressed concerns over shrinking of farm land by nearly 0.2 million hectares and suggested enacting strong legislation to stop shifting of land for non-farming purposes. According to government statistics, the cultivable land in the country has come down to 182.5 million hectares during 2009-10 compared to 182.7 million tonnes during 2005-06. Director General of ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) S Ayyappan said shrinking of farm is a matter of...

It is mostly caused by deliberate neglect and designed failure of the way we manage water and land It’s drought time again. Nothing new in this announcement. Each year, first we have crippling droughts between December and June, and then devastating floods in the next few months. It’s a cycle of despair, which is more or less predictable. But this is not an inevitable cycle of nature we must live...

Pawar’s Report Card The Negatives     Per capita availability of cereals and pulses has fallen in last eight years     No improvement in irrigation, 60% of agriculture still dependent on monsoons     Farmers growing cereals, sugarcane, oilseeds and pulses assured higher MSP, but majority don't benefit     Production up, but not productivity. Farmer suicides are on the rise.     Poor market advisory on exports being misused to buy cheaply from farmers and make profits overseas     Pawar...

-PTI Charging the government with showing apathy towards the grievances of farmers, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj on Saturday insisted that the proposed Food Security Bill should be formulated after discussing the issues with those involved in the agriculture sector. “Government wants to bring a Bill which aims to provide food security to the people. Then a person who does not get food can go to court. Such a...