-Livemint.com After extreme rain and severe flooding, Pakistan is dealing with acute food shortage. Moreover, dollar crunch has kept Pakistani food importers at mercy of grey market Extreme floods might not be a problem for Pakistanis anymore, but acute food shortage and drying forex reserve have made Pakistani food importers vulnerable to the grey market for payments. Under the grey market, the commodities are traded through markets that are unauthorised by the manufacturers....
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Seeds of trouble -Jaideep Hardikar
-The Telegraph This year, a combination of factors is hurting the agriculture sector immensely A quiet, reverse transformation is happening in the countryside, and it is disconcerting. This sowing season, growing numbers of farmers are falling back on their bullocks as fuel prices are piercing the roof. The tractor, the symbol of modern farming, is becoming a luxury in the literal sense. The conventional ploughing equipment tied to bullocks costs only a...
More »The farmers enter the fray -Gurbachan Jagat
-The Tribune Distressed as they were, the final death blow is sought to be delivered in the agricultural reforms. Why not have MSP till a better alternative is found? Why let the oligarchs loose to prey on farmers? Was there a demand from farmers for these reforms? How has the Centre decided suo motu that this would benefit farmers? IT was the early 1960s and I spent two years in my ancestral...
More »Low on cash, farmers shift to Barter system to ensure kids’ education -Santosh Singh
-The Indian Express Bihar has about 75,000 government schools with about three crore students. Nayagaon (Begusarai): Nishu Kumari, a Class IX student at a government-run school, is studying with her brother Nirbhay, a Class VII student and cousin Arpit, a Class I student. Their grandfather Bhagirath Singh is keeping a watch on them as the three have to finish their homework before private tutor Subodh Singh arrives. Nishu’s father Shivjyoti Kumar, a farmer,...
More »Four years after Swachh: cleaning excreta for roti in Rajasthan -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu A Rajasthan village is free of open defecation — on paper Behnara (Bharatpur District): The narrow village street is lined with gutters, dotted with excreta flushed out from latrines inside upper caste homes. Santa Devi pulls a corner of her sari over her mouth and begins to push the morning quota of waste into her metal basin using only a makeshift shovel and broom. Once she has thrown the...
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