-The Indian Express As the toll of human misery and suicide mounts, official estimates of farm losses due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms in March remain controversial, with hasty downward revision. Since these estimates are largely notional, without validation from field visits, such revision smacks of deliberate fiddling. On March 24, the agriculture ministry reported that crops on 18 million hectares — about 30 per cent of the rabi crops —...

-The Hindu Given the high investment and negative incentives such as input subsidies, small farmers have not benefited from government schemes. Everything about the suicide of the farmer from Dausa, Gajendra Singh, save the tragedy for his family, has been theatre — the very public venue, the occasion of a political rally, the politicians happily playing their populist cards, and the media’s focus on trivialities. The tragedy is being skilfully milked for...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: Gujarat today figures among the few states in the country with high malnutrition rates among it's children and low immunity levels in its general population. Agricultural scientists and nutrition experts in the country have suggested how effective millet management in Public Distribution System (PDS) and mid-day meal schemes was the key to ensure nutrition security for small farmers and marginal tribal communities. However, in Gujarat millet...

-Frontline Outcomes of the patterns of growth induced by neoliberal economic reforms have increased the disproportionality between agricultural and non-agricultural growth, and with costs rising and prices not keeping pace, agriculture is becoming increasingly unviable. FARMERS across northern and central India-in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and elsewhere-are distressed. Unseasonal rains have damaged their standing crop and help from the government has been meagre and slow in coming. This, however, is...

-Frontline   The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...