-The Hindu Business Line At an organic market in Odisha, middle-class consumers get to interact with the producers of their food and appreciate traditional knowledge systems One Sunday morning in January, I visited an organic produce market located amidst dense bougainvillea creepers and rows of trees, on the grounds of the six-decade-old Christian Hospital in Bissamcuttack, a town in western Odisha’s Rayagada district. In policy and public imagination, Odisha, particularly its western districts...

-The Indian Express The consolation this time, though, is the surplus showers during June and July. It has resulted in the cumulative rainfall for the four-month southwest monsoon season (June-September) being only 4.3 per cent below normal till August 16. New Delhi: The current month is turning out to be the driest August in eight years. The country as a whole has received 25.6 per cent less area-weighted rainfall during August 1-16...

-Livemint.com Rainfall in the entire country in August has seen a deficit of 23% so far, according to IMD data New Delhi: A patch of red signifying deficit rains, cutting across the length of India from Haryana in the north to Kerala in the south, is threatening to worsen farm distress, shows rainfall data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The June to September south-west monsoon which irrigates over half of India’s crop...

-The Hindu Business Line A recent book shows how a cocktail of indebtedness, masculinity and consumerism acts as a trigger. For those who have wondered whether indebtedness can be the sole factor driving farmers to take their lives, here is a book that introduces much needed nuance and complexity to the debate. Nilotpal Kumar’s book, based on a study of 22 suicide cases in Ananthapur district (accompanied by a fascinating ethnographic study...

-The Hindu Fifty years since the Green Revolution, the architect of the reform highlights the crisis facing Indian agriculture today It is 11 years since agronomist M.S. Swaminathan handed over his recommendations for improving the state of agriculture in India to the former United Progressive Alliance government, at the height of the Vidarbha farmer suicides crisis, but they are still to be implemented. To address the agrarian crisis and farmers’ unrest across...