-The Hindu Coffee cultivation is becoming an increasingly loss-making proposition in India. Already weighed down by the high cost of inputs and production as well as labour shortage, the industry is now also affected by changes in climate patterns, reports  Mini Tejaswi from Karnataka’s coffee heartland Bose Mandanna was devastated when torrential rains in September thrashed the coffee plants in his plantation and left tender berries and leaves strewn everywhere. The plants...

-The Hindu Handbook sees prejudices and ignorance or deliberate misinformation campaign on the exercise The Registrar General of India (RGI) anticipates “organised movement” against the decennial Census exercise such as agitation for inclusion of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and court cases against the collection of data for the National Population Register (NPR). The concern is documented in the Census of India 2021 Handbook for Principal/District Census Officers and Charge Officers that has been...

-Behanbox.com Mumbai: Around 400 metres off the Gujarat state highway near Vautha village, along the snake-like curves of the Sabarmati river, lie nearly a hundred acres of land that government records describe as “non-useful riverside land”. But on the ground, in early April, Baluben Makwana led me through a dirt path to an unexpected scene. On one side was a sprawling expanse of wheat fields, ripe stalks swaying gently in the wind...

One is almost certain to hear this from an economist that if something is available at free of cost or at a subsidised rate thanks to government intervention, then people tend to overuse or overconsume such goods/ commodities. So, the best solution is to create a market for such 'almost freely available' or 'highly subsidised' goods or commodities. Once people start paying to use or consume such goods/ commodities, they...

The Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round), which was released recently, informs one about farm households' income in the crop year 2018-19 and indebtedness in 2019 (as on the date of survey), among other things. Prior to the recent report, Land and Livestock Holding Surveys (LHS) and Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of Agricultural Households used to be...