A meticulous study of the agrarian relations in three villages. ONE of our senior sociologists once drew my attention to the distinction between economics and other social sciences. Other social sciences – sociology and anthropology, for instance – he said, pay a great deal of attention to gathering primary data and interpreting them, whereas economics relies on secondary data for its analysis. This is, to a large extent, a fair...

Last year, paddy cultivation suffered owing to drought in 399 districts during the same period Area under coarse cereals is also up by 2.91 per cent at 21.2 million hectares this year Thanks to good monsoon, the area under rice cultivation this kharif season has gone up by 6.4 per cent. Last year, paddy cultivation had suffered owing to drought in 399 districts during the same period. As per the official data released...

PepsiCo India, the country’s leading food & beverage company, has announced the successful completion of its community water initiatives in Panipat, Haryana. The project has two legs—water recharge structures aimed at improving the water availability for the neighbouring community and direct seeding of paddy that helps reduce water consumption by one-third in paddy cultivation. According to company officials, the projects will benefit nearly 200 families in and around Panipat and save...

The rapid increase in urbanisation and allied infrastructure development activities are causing a shrinking of agricultural land in the Kashmir Valley. Farmers fear that this growing trend of private builders to purchase farmland for building residential colonies would lead to a devastating food crisis in that Kashmir Valley in the coming years. Though the law prevents the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, the allotment of the land for construction comes...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Thursday said that the kharif production at 114.63 million tonnes for 2010-11 crop year was “comfortable.” “The output is better than last year which was a drought year, but lower than 2008-09, which was a normal year.” “The kharif production looks good. Area under crops such as paddy, pulses, cotton and sugarcane is more than last year,'' he told journalists after the Agriculture Ministry released the...