June 29, 2026

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THE FARM CRISIS

Imagine an everyday miracle that arrives at your table with such monotony that it feels mundane: your plate of food. Roti or rice, some dal, vegetables, perhaps a pickle. That thaali is a microcosm of the entire Indian farm sector. Yet we don't think much of it till things start going wrong and we face either scarcity, rising prices, or both. And indeed, in the summer of 2026, a whole flock of black swans has converged at once on the farmer's sky. One paradox ties it all together: despite boasts about decades of selfreliance and food security, even the most native of Indian thaalis is substantially the product of things that came from elsewhere. The Indian dinner platter is a rounded meal of dependencies: the child of South American and Southeast Asian cooking oils, perhaps masoor dal from Canada or Ethiopia, urad from Myanmar, chana from Australia, arhar from Mozambique and, yes, West Asian gas that fertilised the soil. Long-sown habits have grown into that chronic ache of import dependency. "Our food policies are stuck in the 1960s and, through them, we are trying to solve the problems of today and even tomorrow," says G.V. Ramanjaneyulu, executive director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in Hyderabad.Now, war and bad weather have hit smack on that Achilles' heel. The resulting pain has a numerical value: India's combined farm import bill, comprising fertilisers and raw material, edible oils and pulses, is expected to touch $52-56 billion (Rs 5-5.3 lakh crore) this fiscal, from $49-51 billion (Rs 4.4-4.5 lakh crore) in FY26. Fertiliser and raw material imports alone are estimated to go up to $28-30 billion (Rs 2.7-2.9 lakh crore) from $26-27 billion (Rs 2.3-2.4 lakh crore) in FY26. Together, the share of these three components in India's total import bill is expected to rise to 5.2-5.5 per cent from 5-5.2 per cent last fiscal. No surprise, in his appeal to citizens to individually reduce their consumption of foreign exchange apart from gold and foreign travel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: "If every household reduces the use of edible oil by 10 per cent, it is a huge contribution to patriotism." On February 27, on the eve of the Iran war, India's foreign exchange reserves stood at a record $728.49 billion (Rs 69 lakh crore). By the first week of June, the forex stockpile had fallen to $681.61 billion (Rs 64.8 lakh crore)--a decline of nearly 6.4 per cent. In April alone, India's overall Balance of Payment (the difference between inflow of money and its flow to the rest of the world) deficit was $6.6 billion (Rs 62,700 crore), with the import and subsidies and support bills expected to place a 1.8-1.9 per cent burden on GDP.Across pulses, edible oils and fertilisers, the polycrisis in Indian agriculture is not about shortages alone; it is the worrying import dependence in essential farm-linked commodities. Pulses affect protein security and food inflation. Edible oils affect household budgets and the current account. Fertilisers affect crop costs, government subsidy bills and sowing confidence. In all three, India is trying to protect consumers through imports and farmers through missions, subsidies and procurement. But,

SEEKING SIXTH-GEN COMPANY

Aerial warfare is no longer what it used to be. Layered air defence networks, fighter jets with electronic warfare (EW) systems, seamless networking between ground-based, airborne and fighter-based radars, along with the inexpensive but disruptive unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones have changed the nature of the game. Wars of the future will hinge on greater unification of all these through stealth and data fusion, as well as the ability to outmanoeuvre similar rival networks. Enter sixth-generation fighters, which are being conceived precisely for this reality--less as standalone jets and more as command nodes in an interconnected combat ecosystem. These jets are expected to include artificial intelligence (AI)-driven combat systems, manned-unmanned teaming (pairing with drones), long-range precision strike capabilities and advanced propulsion technologies. Two sixth-gen fighter programmes have caught the world's attention: America's F-47 under its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) programme and China's J-36 and J-50 projects.Now, India has an opportunity to join a sixth-gen fighter jet programme, with the Union Ministry of Defence informing Parliament in March 2026 of such an intent. The choice is between two other sixth-gen projects--the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) originally led by France, Germany and Spain (though France has recently pulled out of the project), and the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) of the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan. On April 30, defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh had said, "We have approached both ongoing partnerships between allied democracies and expressed interest in joining a sixth-generation fighter programme. The response is awaited." Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar, former deputy chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF), believes that India's participation in a sixth-gen fighter programme would be transformative. For India, it offers access to cutting-edge technologies in AI, engine technology and networked warfare, while enhancing deterrence against adversaries. For Europe, it provides shared development costs and an