Rising input prices have almost sounded the death knell for the farmer. Is there a way out? A special report published in Down To Earth.

Poor support prices and costly agri inputs make a bad equation for farmers, Savvy Soumya Misra finds out What Mahendra Singh Tikait knows as a farmers

The Bengal famine of 1943 is arguably the worst economic disaster of 20th century south Asia. This paper traces the background of the famine and analyses the role of the land market in fuelling food price rise. It appears that in a monetised, already famished, agrarian economy, during situations of subsistence crisis, interlinking of food and land markets has the potential to cause an exponentially high degree of disaster. The role of a universal public distribution system, which carries over food from a surplus to a deficit year, and insulates the food market, thus becomes paramount.