In India peasantry is under assault. There is a five-pronged attack on this class and the mighty Indian state is sometimes an active and sometimes a passive abettor. The first point of attack is from the corporate sector. The corporate sector is in a land grab mode. Though not justified, one could understand their urge to get land for industry and real estate purposes. Not that they are causing aggressive...

India should look at Latin American countries to keep its food security intact. With little or no investment in the agriculture sector,it is estimated that 45% of Indian farmers want to quit farming—supply-side constraints have been a major causeforconcern. Add to that rapidly falling water tables in North India – India’s bread basket, and erratic monsoons from climate change leading to domestic food output falling short of demand, repeatedlyinthefuture. Talking...

Yerawada prison is a place of contrasts. In one part of the 17-acre complex near the city of Pune in the Indian state of Maharashtra, 300 incarcerated women barely see the light of day and live in cramped, unhygienic conditions. But another part of the prison is currently undergoing a makeover. Here, women will soon be allowed to roam the premises and Farmland in relative freedom. This will be India's first...

A meticulously researched book by A. Vaidyanathan, Agricultural Growth in India: Role of Technology, Incentives and Institutions, is an illuminating scholarly work. Thinking about it one realizes the dismal and declining state of Indian agriculture and the poor governance at both Central and state government levels that has brought it to this sorry pass. A valuable compendium of data and analysis of Indian agriculture since Independence, it is a valuable...

Bhisham Singh Yadav, father of the groom, is stressed. His rented Lexus got stuck behind a bullock cart. He has hired a truck to blast Hindi pop, but it is too big to maneuver through his village. At least his grandest gesture, evidence of his upward mobility, is circling overhead. The helicopter has arrived. Mr. Yadav, a wheat farmer, has never flown, nor has anyone else in the family. And...