-India Water Portal As a solution to the water crisis, Mihir Shah Committee recommends constituting National Water Commission--a multidisciplinary organisation that will look into water management more holistically. The country’s water sector is going through a rough patch. From polluted water resources to increasing demand for water due to rising population and frequent droughts, there are many problems that plague the sector. The worst sufferers are farmers and this is evident...

-The Indian Express The Niti Aayog's report, submitted before the United Nations, acknowledges that anti-poverty programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) helped weaker sections of the society. Vindicating the UPA government’s stand on pulling people out of poverty, India’s Voluntary National Review Report on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals to the United Nations has said that sustained growth of 8.3 per cent from 2004-05 to 2011-12,...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘Odd’ monsoon path upsets crop Cycle, slows down sowing Ahmedabad: Farmers in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and parts of Maharashtra are a worried lot as the ‘monsoon watch’ gets longer in the key growing regions, affecting the sowing of kharif crops. According to the latest available data, farmers in Gujarat have completed sowing on about 8.71 lakh hectares, which is more than double the 2.74 lakh hectares sown by about...

-The Financial Express The fastest-growing major economy of the world cannot ignore its farmers as there is a genuine need to help the farming sector which is suffering from stress on account of indebtedness. The banking industry is also not able to extend credit to those farmers who are in default. A loan waiver can help bankers to renew the loans, and farmers can use the borrowed money for production of...

-Livemint.com Crop insurance has failed to provide much-needed relief to farmers from destitution With one farmer committing suicide every half-an-hour, the number of farmers who have ended their lives as per official records in India is estimated at over 300,000 over the past two decades. These numbers do not include suicides by agricultural labourers, though they too are victims of the agrarian crisis. As each death affects at least the immediate family...