-The Indian Express There is a worrying dearth of Indian economists working on agriculture today. In his classic Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, John Kenneth Galbraith observed how the economics profession had a well-defined order of precedence. At the top were the economic theorists and specialists in banking and finance. At the bottom of the hierarchy were agricultural economists. George F. Warren from Cornell University was even worse — a...

-The Hindu Business Line One small check dam helps stem migration in Khohar, Haryana Every year, nearly all the 150 households of village Khohar, in Haryana’s Mewat district, pack their bags in September and embark on a journey to Gujarat. Hired to pick cotton, they spend the next 4-5 months in pitched tents, working from dawn to dusk. “We return with around ₹50,000 earned between everyone in the family. This sees us through...

-The Hindu In Bihar, ‘development’ comes laced with caste. For the upper castes, it is Modi’s pitch on investment that matters while for Backward Classes, Nitish’s social welfare agenda makes him a governance icon. The BJP, having no regional match for Nitish, has banked on Modi’s popularity. “Development” is a word that one encounters frequently across poll-bound Bihar, with people across caste lines using it to explain their political preferences. However, this...

-The Indian Express Scapegoating ‘hoarders’ and ‘speculators’ for the spike in dal prices might have been effective in the 1960s. But today, it is only evidence of a rather sloppy conceptual policy framework. The pulse rate of a normal and healthy human body hovers between 60 and 100 beats per minute. There can be problems if it goes any higher — and a serious threat to life over 200 beats per...

-Livemint.com The destruction of almost two-thirds of the state’s cotton crop by the whitefly has forced 15 farmers to commit suicide, pushed hundreds of others into debt An insect has ravaged the cotton crop across Punjab’s Malwa region. The destruction of almost two-thirds of the state’s cotton crop by the whitefly has forced as many as 15 farmers to commit suicide and pushed hundreds of others into debt. A Times of India report...