-Down to Earth As June ends, the monsoon, it turns out, is deficient by 40 per cent. Despite the forecast of its revival in July, it is a concern for India's rainfed areas that account for significant foodgrain production and also host the largest number of farmers in the country. More than 100 districts are officially "chronic drought-affected" areas. Why have we not been able to drought-proof them? On June 28 Prime...
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Drought Mitigation in Tamil Nadu -S Rajendran
-Economic and Political Weekly Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...
More »'Upper caste villagers grab dalits' farmland by proxy' -Amaninder Pal Sharma
-The Times of India PATIALA: Dalits in Punjab are being used as proxy bidders by upper caste peasants to corner thousands of acres of agricultural village land that should ideally be rented out only to scheduled caste members. This practice has been exposed by the Punjab State Scheduled Caste Commission in its report on the boycott of dalits in Baupur village by upper caste members. The state government gives out agricultural...
More »A failed revolution -Budhaditya Bhattacharya
-The Hindu Filmmakers Kavita Bahl and Nandan Saxena on their award-winning documentary "Candles in the Wind" which chronicles the struggles of the widows of the Green Revolution in Punjab As calls for a ‘second green revolution' begin to be heard, it is important to examine the legacy of the first. In Punjab, the laboratory of the revolution, the experiment seems to have gone wrong - water tables have declined, agriculture has become...
More »Agriculture And Not The Stock Market Is The Reality Of India -Roshan Kishore
-The Citizen.in This piece is a rejoinder to an article by D K Joshi, which appeared in ‘The Indian Express' on June 4, 2014. The main arguments made by the author are neither new nor unique. Many neoliberal economists, including some occupying crucial policy-making positions have been making arguments which propose dilution of Minimum Support Price (MSP) policies to take care of excess food stocks with the government and also control...
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