-The Hindu Agricultural experts say small farmers are working under severe economic constraints — their earnings are very low and they are indebted — and hence many are compelled to leave farming. Punjab’s farming sector is in crisis and showing signs of sickness as it suffers from falling productivity and shrinking returns. Farmers are reeling under debt, and owing to low profitability, small farmers, in particular, are quitting farming. In the past...

-Livemint.com Nobel to Deaton calls for a celebration of not just his own work but also the contributions of a number of Indian economists who have engaged with similar issues The announcement of Angus Deaton winning the Nobel Prize in economics was unexpected but not surprising. His body of work over the years has influenced many of us who have worked on issues of poverty, nutrition and food security. It is...

-DNA Wondering about the plight of the rural population facing successive droughts which has to buy pulses, South Asia Network for Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) laments how no benefit of the price hike is reaching actual pulse farmers. While most link the current tur (pigeon pea) dal crisis with raging market prices, storage issues, hoarding and economics, a new study highlighting the making of the crisis - by South Asia Network...

-Economic and Political Weekly Independence of the judiciary is not the issue in the current stand-off; it is control over appointments. The decision of the Supreme Court striking down the Constitution 99th Amendment and the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) marks a high confrontation level between the executive and the judiciary. One of the first actions of the Narendra Modi government was to bring into being the NJAC to make appointments to...

-The Indian Express Scapegoating ‘hoarders’ and ‘speculators’ for the spike in dal prices might have been effective in the 1960s. But today, it is only evidence of a rather sloppy conceptual policy framework. The pulse rate of a normal and healthy human body hovers between 60 and 100 beats per minute. There can be problems if it goes any higher — and a serious threat to life over 200 beats per...