-Livemint.com Such a recovery will be stress-tested in an economy with excess capacity. That is why wages matter The first estimates of economic growth in the September quarter indicate that India’s ongoing recovery has been better than expected. This is a good time to resurrect a question this column had raised in August: Will the economic recovery be led by profits or wages? The answer matters because it has implications for aggregate...

-Down to Earth Punjab has paid a price for food security. The use of pesticides and fertilisers has resulted in a number of health issues for the state’s population Punjab — known as the ‘Granary of India’ — produces 20 per cent and nine per cent of India’s wheat and rice respectively. At the international level, this represents three per cent of the global production of these crops. The state is responsible...

-Scroll.in ‘In a period when people have been dying of hunger, the government has increased the amount of grain it is hoarding in its godowns.’ Instead of using its grain stocks to feed the poor and hungry during the coronavirus-lockdown crisis, the Indian government is letting this food rot in its godowns. The government does not have proper storage facilities for stocking such a large amount of excess grain. Since much of...

-Financial Express A study by ICRIER researchers Ashok Gulati and Pritha Banerjee shows how problematic the fertiliser policy is—for farmers, industry, the environment and the government. India’s experience with fertilisers, in the later part of the Green Revolution, prompted it to adopt a policy of subsidising fertilisers. In 1977, the country had a total NPK (nitrogenous, phosphatic and potassic) fertiliser consumption of 4.3 million metric tonnes (mmt) and per hectare usage...

-India Water Portal Excessive and unregulated pesticide use has not only poisoned the soil, water and environment in villages in Punjab’s Malwa region – it has also increased health risks for the people Punjab, riding high on pesticides Pesticide use continues to be very high in agriculture in India, where estimated annual production losses due to pests amount to approximately US$ 42.66 million per year. Pesticides are chemical compounds that kill pests such...