Rural indebtedness and dependence on private moneylenders is an age-old problem in India. For more than 100 years now, the Central Government and the Reserve Bank of India have been making efforts to enhance institutional credit in rural areas particularly to assist in agricultural operations....

Weather experts around the world are foreseeing a strong El Niño in 2014. In India, these developments are feared to lead to droughts. In the last 14 years, out of the four El Niño years globally, three resulted in Indian droughts. Since the 1980s, all the six droughts faced by India were in...

Landslide victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in state assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh in March 2017 offers a golden opportunity to change the face of UP's agriculture and thus the fate of millions that depend on it. UP with a population of more than 220 million is the most populous state...

Bihar's agricultural development in the latest 10 years between 2005-06 and 2014-15, presents a mixed picture. Agriculture growth was around 4.7 per cent, which was above the national average of 3.6 per cent and in the latest five years, its performance was even more commendable, with an average...

Odisha is one of the poorest states in the country, with around 36 per cent of the rural population living below the poverty line. Ninety one per cent of poverty in Odisha is rural and more than 60 per cent of its workforce is engaged in agriculture. During the five years from 2010-11 to...

Indian agriculture is estimated to be consuming about 78 percent of total fresh water resources available in the country. Yet, more than half of the gross cropped area is still dependent on rains. Extremely skewed allocation of scarce irrigation water amongst crops and inefficient use of the...