-The Hindu Liquid Gold’ may refer to petroleum, an ‘80s pop group or a particularly indulgent variety of cheese but for Raghuram Mallaiah, a doctor who specialises in newborn babies, it’s mother’s milk. As a doctor who has to negotiate life-and-death situations for prematurely-born infants, Dr. Mallaiah holds that breast milk is “10 times more important” for babies born before their due date than those who reach full term. The biological quandary...

-Livemint.com With food and water in short supply, farmers in Bundelkhand are leaving cattle to fend for themselves Mahoba (Uttar Pradesh)/New Delhi: Some time in March, Dhan Prasad Anuragi led his pregnant cow Kajal a couple of miles outside his village and abandoned her. The 55-year-old farmer, who lives in Balchaur village of Mahoba district in Uttar Pradesh, says he had no choice. He couldn’t afford to feed the cow and his only hope...

-The Indian Express Why the revival of exports matters as much as rains for Indian farmers. It is generally held that the woes of Indian farmers today have had largely to do with extreme weather events. The southwest monsoon failed in both 2014 and 2015. Besides, we had extensive crop damage from unseasonal rain and hailstorms over large parts of north, west and central India in March 2015. From this also follows the...

-The Financial Express In a drought period, its job-insurance function critical Never perhaps in its decade of existence has the rural employment guarantee programme —MGNREGA—been more relevant than it is now. After two weak monsoons, the critically low water levels in reservoirs have resulted in drought-like conditions in large parts of the country. Critics of the scheme would argue that even in its best days, the programme hasn’t accounted for more than...

-The Indian Express The suffering of millions does not create public outrage, much less government accountability. The people of India’s villages carry collective memories of centuries of calamitous losses of sometimes millions of lives in famines. Famines have been pushed into history, unarguably one of free India’s greatest accomplishments. But the same can’t be said about droughts, which continue to extract an enormous toll on human suffering. At least a third of the...