-The Indian Express “Last year, we recorded fire incidents till May 26 and the figure was 11,468. This year were are recording till May-end as the harvesting of wheat was delayed due to untimely rains,” said Anil Sood, head of the ACM Division, PRSC, Ludhiana. Jalandhar: Stubble burning incidents in Punjab have crossed the 2018 figure despite the efforts of the state government to stop farmers of burning their fields post...

-The Indian Express Lowering production costs, and a policy shift from ‘managing shortages’ to ‘handling surpluses’, is the way forward for Indian agriculture The government wants farmers’ incomes to double in five years by 2022. While a laudable objective, the reality today is that farmers are suffering stress, if not shrinkage, in their incomes. The demand for loan waivers, and political pressures to implement these, is only a reflection of this...

-The Indian Express Insecurity, more than poverty or indebtedness, is the key economic issue that politicians must address If social inequality is the most acutely felt social problem in India, insecurity, more than poverty, is the most acutely felt economic problem. While most measures suggest that only around one-fifth of the population today is under the official poverty line, large sections of those even much above that line are subject to...

-SundayGuardianLive.com In December 2017, this newspaper exposed in an article entitled “Law aiding Monsanto is reason for Delhi’s smoke season” how a law to help Monsanto was the reason for the Delhi metropolitan region being blanketed in smoke every November. That law, the Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act of 2009, imposed a delay on farmers who wanted to plant rice. The delay in planting in turn created a delay in...

-The Hindu Farmers in Punjab continue to burn paddy stubble every winter despite a ban on the practice. Jacob Koshy and Vikas Vasudeva report on the compulsions that drive farmers to adopt this method of clearing their fields and the efforts by the State administration to wean them off it The highway to Bibipur, a hamlet about 50 km from Patiala town, cuts through acres of paddy. Some of the rice stalk...