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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 10:20:16 am

Hollow Hearts

Pune has long cultivated an image of itself as Maharashtra’s cultural and educational capital. Yet, the alleged murder of a young businessman by his fiancée and her lover at Lohagad Fort reveals a darker reality that beneath the city’s polished image lies a growing culture of selfishness, emotional emptiness and moral decay. According to police investigations, what initially appeared to be a tragic trekking accident has been revealed as a carefully planned killing. The victim was allegedly...

Hollow Hearts

Pune has long cultivated an image of itself as Maharashtra’s cultural and educational capital. Yet, the alleged murder of a young businessman by his fiancée and her lover at Lohagad Fort reveals a darker reality that beneath the city’s polished image lies a growing culture of selfishness, emotional emptiness and moral decay. According to police investigations, what initially appeared to be a tragic trekking accident has been revealed as a carefully planned killing. The victim was allegedly pushed into a gorge by his fiancée and her lover. The details are chilling not merely because of the violence involved, but because of the cold calculation that appears to underpin it. The shocking part is that the victim was not allegedly targeted by strangers or enemies, but by someone who was due to be his life partner. The victim’s father’s, suspecting a bigger conspiracy, has said his son now appears to have been targeted on previous occasions. A society functions on the assumption that bonds of affection, loyalty and commitment still matter. When those bonds are betrayed with such apparent ease, the damage extends far beyond a single crime. Previous generations in Pune, for all their imperfections, tended to view courtship, marriage and family obligations through the lens of duty as much as desire. Commitments were not always honoured, but they were generally regarded as sacred. Today, among sections of the urban middle class, a more transactional ethic appears to be taking hold. Individual fulfilment is elevated above every other consideration and fidelity is seen less as a virtue than as a lifestyle choice. Modern India is witnessing unprecedented prosperity. Cities like Pune have transformed from sleepy educational centres into hubs of real estate, information technology and consumption. While prosperity has expanded opportunities that previous generations could scarcely imagine, rising wealth has regrettably become the sole measure of worth. The Lohagad case is not entirely isolated from broader trends visible in the city. In recent years Pune has repeatedly found itself in the headlines for reasons that sit uneasily with its self-image. Reckless displays of privilege, rising criminality among affluent youth and a growing sense that money can bend rules have all tarnished the city's reputation. The Porsche crash that outraged the nation became a symbol of entitlement unconstrained by responsibility. The Lohagad case, though very different in its particulars, speaks to a similar malaise of the weakening of moral limits. The tragedy at Lohagad should be seen as more than a lurid crime story. It is a warning about a city, and perhaps a country, in which material advancement has outpaced moral reflection. Pune’s greatest challenge today is not managing growth. It is preserving the values that once gave meaning to that growth.

Beyond the Waiver Reflex

As Tamil Nadu approaches a high-stakes election, its farm policy will test whether voters favour a blend of immediate relief and long-term reform over familiar short-term populism

CM MK Stalin uses a handloom during an early morning outreach campaign ahead of the state Assembly elections in Ramanathapuram. Pic: PTI
CM MK Stalin uses a handloom during an early morning outreach campaign ahead of the state Assembly elections in Ramanathapuram. Pic: PTI

New Delhi: India’s farm policy is generally trapped in a loop. Each crisis, whether drought or flood has shown state governments usually reaching out for the same palliative instruments – be it loan waivers, raising procurement or subsidising inputs. However, these are measures that do not solve the problem, The underlying system of fragmented holdings, fickle markets and water stress remains brittle. What distinguishes Tamil Nadu’s recent approach in recent years - particularly under Edappadi K. Palaniswami’s tenure as Chief Minister - is not that it broke from this cycle, but that it tried to bend it.


That matters all the more in a poll-bound state. As Tamil Nadu edges toward its next electoral test, farm policy is poised to become more than a ledger of promises. It is a referendum on whether voters reward immediate relief or longer-term repair - or, as this model suggests, a calibrated mix of both.


Take the Rs. 12,110 crore crop loan waiver of 2021. The waiver came in the wake of the economic dislocation caused by COVID-19 and the destruction wrought by cyclones Cyclone Nivar and Cyclone Burevi. It functioned as a stabiliser during systemic shock. Crucially, it was paired with measures designed to reduce the likelihood of such distress recurring.


Among the most consequential was the notification of the Cauvery delta as a Special Protected Agricultural Zone. Covering eight districts, the policy imposed restrictions on non-agricultural activities, effectively redrawing the boundary between industrial expansion and fertile land. In a country where urbanisation often consumes prime farmland, this was an explicit political choice: preservation over encroachment.


Revival and Expansion

Water management - Tamil Nadu’s perennial Achilles’ heel - was tackled through a blend of revival and expansion. The Kudimaramath scheme, rooted in traditional community-led tank restoration, was scaled up significantly, with thousands of works completed. Alongside this decentralised effort, the state pushed forward with the Athikadavu-Avinashi project, a large-scale attempt to divert surplus water from the Bhavani River to drought-prone regions. River-linking proposals and negotiated land acquisitions aimed to extend irrigation benefits further. The logic was that resilience begins with water security.


Yet improving production is only half the battle. Farmers’ incomes depend less on what they grow than on what they earn. Here, too, Tamil Nadu attempted incremental correction. Procurement under price-support schemes was expanded beyond staples to include pulses and copra. The state set relatively generous support prices for paddy and sugarcane, seeking to inject a degree of predictability into an otherwise erratic market. Such measures cannot eliminate volatility, but they can soften its edges.


Mitigating Ecological Risk

Diversification has formed another layer of the strategy. India’s long-standing bias towards water-intensive monocropping has heightened ecological risk. Incentives were therefore introduced to promote millets and horticulture - crops better suited to changing climatic conditions. By integrating millets into the public distribution system in cities such as Chennai and Coimbatore, the state attempted something more ambitious: aligning production incentives with consumption patterns. It is a subtle but important shift.


Lowering the cost of cultivation was another priority. Subsidised solar pump sets hinted at a convergence between agriculture and renewable energy, while assurances of continuous three-phase electricity addressed a mundane but critical constraint on farm productivity. These are not headline-grabbing reforms, but they shape the everyday economics of farming.


Beyond the farm gate, attention turned to value addition. Plans for Mega Food Parks in districts such as Dindigul, Krishnagiri and Salem sought to integrate farmers into processing-led supply chains, reducing post-harvest losses and capturing greater value. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University released dozens of new crop varieties and hybrids, spanning cereals, pulses and horticulture. Such investments in research and development rarely yield immediate political dividends, but they underpin long-term productivity.


Institutional reform, too, has been part of the picture. Proposals for a State Agricultural Commission suggest a move towards continuous policy calibration rather than episodic intervention. Efforts to strengthen Farmer Producer Organisations through financial support, federated structures and tax relief reflect an understanding that aggregation is essential in modern agricultural markets.


The contrast with the broader Indian pattern is instructive. Agriculture is often treated as a sector requiring periodic rescue rather than systemic redesign. Tamil Nadu’s approach, imperfect and incomplete though it is, hints at a different framing: farming as an economic system that must be made more resilient, diversified and knowledge-driven. The emphasis shifts from producing more to earning better.


Under subsequent administrations, including that of M. K. Stalin, improvements in irrigation and output have continued, though the translation into higher farm incomes remains uneven.


Tamil Nadu does not offer a ready-made template for India. Its geography, politics and institutional capacity are distinct. But its experience illustrates that where political intent aligns short-term relief with long-term restructuring, the contours of a more stable agrarian system begin to emerge. Over to the voters now.

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