-Business Standard Most homes not getting enough to eat; resorting to sending children for work, distress sale of any cattle; call for comprehensive relief without delay A little more than a third of the 100-odd drought-hit villages in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh have recorded at least one death due to hunger or malnutrition in the past eight months. And, about two-thirds of households often did not get two square meals in...

-Down to Earth The villages are now officially recognised and have been renamed as Tehri Bhagirathi Nagar, Ghonti Village and Chhaam After nearly four decades of struggle by displaced residents, the Uttarakhand government has finally recognised three villages as revenue villages, displaced due to the construction of the Tehri Dam. With this recognition, the villages will now have land rights, basic amenities like electricity, water, health services, educational institutions, banks, post offices...

-Business Standard Indian farming was transformed after the mid-60s, on a wave of new agri technology and allied changes, but the costs of this model can no longer be ignored or its addressing be postponed It was around the mid-1960s when the Paddock brothers, the ‘prophets of doom’, predicted that in another decade, recurring famines and an acute shortage of foodgrain would push India towards disaster.   Their prophecy was based on a...

Agricultural insurance is supposed to protect farmers from financial hardships and risks when crop losses and damage takes place due to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclone, hailstorms, flood etc. However, in reality this does not hold true in India. Due to the failure of crop insurance schemes in India, there has been a deepening of agrarian crisis and rural distress in the recent times, particularly in the backdrop of...

-The Hindu Business Line A creeping crisis in soyabean in Madhya Pradesh has given rise to this contradiction. Different policies are called for The Indian policymaker seems to suffer from the musk deer syndrome. The musk deer is a rare species that produces musk in its own body. But it does not realise this and searches endlessly for the source of the aroma. India faces a similar dilemma. On the one hand, the...