-Down to Earth As corruption hijacks procurement centres in Bundelkhand, farmers prefer suicide to a debt trap. Richard Mahapatra reports from Uttar Pradesh with photographer Sayantoni Palchoudhuri A fatal paradox strikes Bundelkhand in the face—an overflowing wheat stock yet an overwhelming number of farmer suicides. Farmers here dread the government wheat procurement centre and the post-mortem house. In Orai, a small town in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, the two are...

-The Hindu   It accounted for well over a fifth of the total of 14,027 deaths in 2011 With a figure of at least 14,027 in 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the total number of farm suicides since 1995 has touched 2,70, 940. The State of Maharashtra shows a rise in numbers yet again, logging 3,337 against 3,141 farmers’ suicides the previous year (and 2,872 in 2009). This, despite...

-The Times of India As many as 14,004 farmers committed suicide in 2011 countrywide, the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau has noted. The number is lower than the previous year's figure of 15,933 but the dip might be much less considering that Chhattisgarh, which recorded 1,412 farmer suicides in 2010, claimed that there were no farmer suicides at all in the state in 2011. As always, Maharashtra fared...

Weak performance of monsoon this year has led the government to anticipate a significant increase in demand for work under its flagship ruralemployment guarantee scheme. The rural development ministry has asked all states to prepare contingency plans and review their estimates of work demand under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The move is an indication that the Centre is not very certain of monsoon catching up in the...

-Down to Earth World is moving towards natural capital as a measure of economic growth After using gross domestic product, or GDP, as the universal measurement of economy for six decades, the world has begun looking beyond this gold standard for measuring a country’s economy. On May 25, 10 African countries agreed to incorporate their natural capital, or value of their natural resources, into their national accounts to make better economic decisions. The...