Harish Damodaran
Articles By Harish Damodaran
LPG, toilet, house: BJP built solid rural assets but income didn’t rise
“Incomes” not rising, due to low crop prices and stagnating wages, has more than offset any “asset” gains in the recent period, which also probably explains the party’s heavy losses in the three states it ruled, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Explained: Why number of hungry is rising
After number fell from 2003 to 2014, UN data find trend reversed. Yet since 2014, global farm commodity prices have been falling. Here is why that has not stopped the rise in the number of hungry people
Simply Put: Madhya Pradesh, a farm story
Farmers issues will likely play a key role as Madhya Pradesh votes today. While the current narrative is of farm distress, Shivraj Singh Chouhan's tenure has mostly coincided with a remarkable transformation in the sector.
Explained: Why soyabean is key to Madhya Pradesh
The crop has often helped shape poll outcomes in Malwa, which accounts for more than half the state’s production. Once thriving, soyabean has suffered falling prices in the last few years.
For Madhya Pradesh farmers, ‘parivartan’ after note ban means return to cash
Jitendra Agarwal, secretary of the Anaj Tilhan Vyapari Sangh at Ujjain’s Chimanganj mandi, the country’s largest for soyabean with daily peak season arrivals of 25,000-35,000 bags of 90 kg each, concedes that the move away from cash has hit farmers hard.
MP chief Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s bait: Bonus scheme for farmer for new govt to bear
A flat Rs 500/quintal payment on soyabean and maize is the latest of the ruling BJP's many offerings to quell rural anger after Mandsaur.
Madhya Pradesh: Urea shortage becomes a poll issue
The Indian Express saw farmers desperately queuing up at fertiliser outlets in many places, including Harda, Dewas and Ujjain, to buy whatever little urea is available.
TDP-Congress Prajakutami: An alliance of a different kind
Why one should not discount the interests of the business community behind the TDP-Congress Prajakutami for the upcoming Telangana Assembly elections.
Mechanical solutions
Forcing machinery on farmers without giving a thought to the economics of their utilisation can prove counter-productive.
Is food inflation round the corner?
First, it was low prices and, now, with soaring input costs, farmers may cut back on sowings
IARI breeds nutrient-rich hybrid maize
The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) here has bred a hybrid maize — Pusa Vivek QPM 9 Improved — that is claimed to be the world’s first ever rich in lysine and tryptophan as well as pro-vitamin A.
Call the bond bluff
Government and RBI should pay little attention to the demand of bond vigilantes to hike rates
To end UPA freeze on Bt brinjal, regulator looks at Bangladesh
The GEAC has decided to write to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) “to obtain relevant information and data on the post commercial release effects of Bt Brinjal in Bangladesh from Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI)”.
Feet of clay
How top-down decision-making, delusions of grandeur led a strong government to poor decisions
The economics of long-run growth, in tech innovation and climate change
Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel: The two men awarded have been obsessed with economic growth and human welfare outcomes over decades, or even centuries.
What new Rabi MSPs don’t factor in: Actual price hikes for diesel, other inputs
For the upcoming 2018-19 rabi planting season, the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) in the Agriculture Ministry has computed the all-India average A2+FL production costs for six crops: wheat, barley, chana (chickpea), masur (lentil), rapeseed-mustard and safflower.
Eye on state polls, ear to protests, government hikes MSPs for rabi crops
The latest MSP hike takes the total increase during the current NDA government’s tenure from 2014-15 to 2018-19 to Rs 440 per quintal for wheat and Rs 425-440 per quintal for paddy.
Bearish signals: When minimum support price is only on paper
For the Modi government and farmers, it’s not MSPs for rabi, but below-MSP rates for kharif crops now being marketed, that should really worry.
How will mills crush in the next season?
With raising working capital from banks going to pose a huge challenge, it leaves the only one possibility — of farmers offering their cane on credit and millers paying them as and when the sugar processed from it gets sold.
Cane dilemma: No sweet alternatives here
The Centre has no time to lose to address an unprecedented sugar glut ahead of the next crushing season — in an election year.
