-Scroll.in Two successive crop failures have brought the poor of Bundelkhand to the brink. The soil is too arid to plant the winter crop of wheat and families have begun to cut down on meals. While her grandson Sultan nibbles on a roti, Shanti lies wrapped in a blanket, ignoring the hunger pangs. Her son and daughter-in-law have gone to work as daily wagers in Sehore near Bhopal, 300 kilometres away, leaving...

-Hindustan Times India, the father of the nation famously said, lives in its villages, or, as many call it, Bharat. There is no doubt that a great shift is underway: As 600 million move out of rural areas over the next 35 years, India will need about 500 new cities. But unless Bharat offers a fraction of the hope that ushered in Narendra Modi’s era, the ongoing urban transformation of India...

-Business Standard Most homes not getting enough to eat; resorting to sending children for work, distress sale of any cattle; call for comprehensive relief without delay A little more than a third of the 100-odd drought-hit villages in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh have recorded at least one death due to hunger or malnutrition in the past eight months. And, about two-thirds of households often did not get two square meals in...

Agricultural insurance is supposed to protect farmers from financial hardships and risks when crop losses and damage takes place due to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclone, Hailstorms, flood etc. However, in reality this does not hold true in India. Due to the failure of crop insurance schemes in India, there has been a deepening of agrarian crisis and rural distress in the recent times, particularly in the backdrop of...

-Hindustan Times The impact of climate change on India’s agriculture is more evident than ever before, but millions of small and marginal farmers do not have adequate safeguards, said a study released on Friday. The country’s farm sector is considered highly vulnerable to shifts in weather patterns as half of the cropland is dependent on rainfall, drawing around 60% of the farmers to the core of the climate-proofing debate. Climate change increases frequency...