-Business Standard India’s growth in agriculture and allied activities has struggled to reach the targeted four per cent average a year in the first three years of the 12th five-year Plan because of a host of factors. The below-average farm growth is widely expected to deepen the crisis in the farm sector. In an interview with Sanjeeb Mukherjee, newly-appointed member of NITI Aayog and eminent agriculture economist Ramesh Chand  said over-reliance...

-Business Standard Uttar Pradesh's two main crops, wheat and sugarcane, have been facing a variety of problems in recent months Crop recasting, effective income security and a refocusing of the subsidy pattern to target small and marginal farmers are needed, went a presentation by the Uttar Pradesh agriculture department at the two-day national conference on rabi crops. The presentation was the basis of a discussion on the agrarian problem facing the country. Uttar Pradesh's...

-The Hindu Business Line Recently, the Telangana Agricultural Advisory Forum, consisting of a few university professors and scientists, deliberated on the causes and consequences of the drought and farmer ‘suicides’ in the State. The unofficial number of suicides attributed to farm families is 1,152. An inquiry into some of the recent suicides reveals an interesting picture. The farmers were not indebted to cooperative credit societies or commercial banks. The case of a...

-Business World In the run up to Independence Day, Professor Ashok Gulati wrote a scathing critique of what he has described as “elitist biases in public policy”, that ignore the reality of the masses in rural areas. The reality he describes is that of low rates of growth in agriculture; a sector that majority of Indians still depend on.  He lamented the excessive preponderance of economic policy discourse in the country...

-The Hindu While the Rapid Survey on Children points to substantial progress in fields that have become a focus of serious action, such as safe delivery, it also highlights the penalties of inaction in other fields The recent release of summary findings from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC) has generated remarkably little interest in the mainstream media. The main focus of attention so far has been the indifferent performance of Gujarat...