-Voice of America NEW DELHI: Unseasonable rains and hailstorms have damaged wide swathes of crops in India, one of the world’s biggest producers of commodities such as wheat. The government has promised to enhance compensation for millions of farmers, who are staring at huge losses. Rains lashed much of India through March -- normally the time when dry weather and rising temperatures ripen the wheat crop, making it ready to harvest. Besides wheat,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: As the NDA government's Land bill remains stuck in a logjam with the opposition stonewalling it in Rajya Sabha, it's the UPA's 2013 law that has for now benefitted a section of Landowners in Delhi. In a series of judgments pronounced in recent months (as late as March), the Delhi high court has scrapped acquisition of several acres of Land in Delhi by government agencies, some...

-NDTV Vidarbha, Maharashtra: First the skies dried up, and then it rained heavily, too heavily for Ramesh Khamankar's cotton crop. In January, the cotton farmer from Maharashtra's Vidarbha region poisoned himself to death. The crisis that has engulfed this region this year was not just of bad weather, but also one which had its origins miles away from the ruined cotton fields of Vidarbha. Falling demand from China pushed down the...

-The Hindu Business Line   Land holders deserve a just, dignified deal. The 2013 came close to that; now, we are turning the clock back It isn't really surprising that the public debate over the Land acquisition law has been reduced to a simplistic narrative of whether farmers have become the stumbling blocks to India's growth story by refusing to part with their Land. In the past, debates over big dams and nuclear...

-Hindustan Times It took nearly 15 years for India's Right to Information Act (RTI) to finally become a law in 2005 after the late VP Singh (who was India's prime minister briefly) first stressed the importance of a law that would give citizens the right to seek and get information. But now that Landmark act could become toothless in far less time than that. If that happens, it will be a...