-The Times of India HYDERABAD: Telangana appears to be heading towards a drought. Half of the monsoon season is over and apart from the initial days of rainfall, the state has had a dry spell. Water levels in reservoirs are dropping rapidly and many towns are facing a drinking water crisis. In rural areas, the crisis is in the form of dying crops and a looming threat of fodder shortage. In fact,...

-Brookings Institution India Center In  this  paper,  the author studies  the  data from  the  National  Crime  Record  Bureau  (NCRB)  of  India  and disaggregate  across  demographic  and  leading  causes  of  suicides. The author finds  that  mental  and  physical health  are  the  leading  causes  of suicides  in  India  (20%)  while  the  often  cited  factor,  indebtedness, causes  significantly  lower  number  of suicides  (less  than  5%).  Among  the  different  demographic categories, housewives report the largest...

-The Times of India HYDERABAD: The lack of monsoon rains is spelling doom for Telangana on three fronts: First, a drastic drop in paddy cultivation is set to trigger a massive shortage in rice production; second, with their crops more or less destroyed and the prospect of rains in the near future bleak, Farmers are resorting to suicides; and thirdly, plummeting water levels at Nagarjunsagar Dam is threatening to disrupt the...

-The Hindu Business Line Raw silk duty cut triggers sharp fall Bengaluru: Unable to deal with mounting debts amidst diminishing returns from his three-acre farm, Siddaramu, a sericulture farmer in his mid-fifties at Abburdoddi near Channapatna, committed suicide recently in his silkworm rearing house. The trigger for this unfortunate incident was the crash in silk cocoon prices and the issuance of recovery notice by the bank, says Chandramma, his wife. Other crops too failed Siddaramu,...

-The Indian Express It is necessary to rescue public policy from its elitist bias, bring agriculture to its centre There is seldom any Independence Day speech where the prime minister, from the ramparts of the Red Fort, does not thank the jawans and kisans for their heroic role in securing our borders and ensuring food security. This year is unlikely to be different. Recall Lal Bahadur Shastri’s famous slogan, “Jai Jawan,...