The Government of India’s initiative to focus on agricultural development in the eastern states, as represented by the meeting that the Union ministers for finance and agriculture attended in Kolkata last week, is welcome if belated. Some may see this as a pre-election gimmick with an eye to elections in Bihar and Bengal. But there is no gainsaying the fact that the region’s agricultural economy needs a productivity boost. Among...

In this land of rolling hills, made lush by the monsoon, traffic ceases after dusk. So it is unusual to hear jeeps running through the night on the winding roads of tribal south Rajasthan. Through the day, the local police, villagers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are out in force, trying to stop what they can only slow—the mass trafficking of children across the border into Gujarat from the Rajasthan districts that...

India’s top grain-producers Punjab and Haryana will raise planting of basmati rice as floods have washed away the recently sown regular grades, farmers and trade officials said on Monday. Basmati rice can be planted late, but Yields are much lower than regular grades, with farmers also having to face fluctuating market prices, unlike common rice grades that official agencies buy at fixed, attractive rates. “Paddy output will certainly drop this year. However,...

When the Reddy brothers, accused of illegal mining, demonstrate their grip over a state government, most people will rightly bemoan the role that corruption plays in public life. However, vital as it is to tackle the issue, it is also important to view it in perspective. Most people would not have realised, for instance, that India has been improving on at least one corruption score. Transparency International, the Berlin-based body,...

The goal of food for all can be achieved only through greater and integrated attention to production, procurement, preservation and public distribution. The President, in her address to Parliament on June 4, 2009, announced: “My Government proposes to enact a new law — the National Food Security Act — that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all. Every family below the poverty line in...