Siraj Hussain
Writing
Opinion pieces since 2016, and research and publications on agriculture, food policy, trade and governance.
01
Opinion pieces
More than 300 columns since 2016 on agriculture, food processing, MSP and procurement, food inflation, trade, crop insurance, ethanol blending programme, Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and data quality. Regular columnist for Moneycontrol and The Wire.
All opinion pieces · 335
- Why the ECI Must Revert to Pre-SIR Electoral Rolls to Restore Voters’ Rights ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N.K. Sharma
- The Mess That SIR Has Created Is Beyond Repair. It Must be Scrapped ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N.K. Sharma
- SIR, Migration and the Condition of 'Ordinary Residence' ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N.K. Sharma
- Faulty sugar estimates leave a bitter taste ↗With Shweta Saini
- E-20 Explainer: What Are India's Vehicles Drinking? ↗With Shweta Saini, G.K. Sood
- In Haryana and Uttarakhand, 'Logical Discrepancy' Haunts SIR, Temporary Absence Treated as Migration ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N.K. Sharma
- Has India's Agricultural Productivity Really Tripled Over 2015-2025, or Are the Statistics Flawed? ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N.K. Sharma
- Labour Bureau’s Methodology is Causing Confusion in Rural Wage Rates Data. Here’s Why ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N.K. Sharma
- Import of Urea gives headache to Government
- From 'Absent' Voter to Suspected Citizen: The Human Cost of SIR ↗With N.K. Sharma, Sanjay Kumar
- Ways to Make Voters Disappear: SIR Deletions and 'Consensus' Politics ↗With N.K. Sharma, Sanjay Kumar
- Why the Uttar Pradesh SIR is a Riddle ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N.K. Sharma
- ECI’s Motto of 'No Voter to Be Left Behind' Has Now Been Left Far Behind ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N.K. Sharma
- The ECI Must Know that Mere Migration Does Not Render a Voter Rootless ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N. K. Sharma
- India-US Interim Agreement: Likely impact on agriculture ↗With Garima Jain
- Agriculture, rural sectors may have to wait for another day ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Schemed for erasure ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- India’s farmers and their tryst with the golden grain ↗With Garima Jain
- Viksit Bharat@2047: Why Universal Health Coverage is Necessary ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N. K. Sharma
- Unintended consequences of blending ethanol with petrol ↗With Garima Jain
- To Equitably Become ‘Viksit’ by 2047, India Must Urgently Reverse Its Income Growth Differential ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N. K. Sharma
- India’s $30 Trillion Economy by 2047 is a Distant Pipe Dream ↗With Sanjay Kumar, N. K. Sharma
- GDP Growth Estimates: Something Does Not Add Up ↗With N. K. Sharma, Sanjay Kumar
- Is India’s $100 Billion Agricultural Export Dream Achievable? ↗With Priyanka Bains
- Aatmanirbharta in Pulses: The Government of India’s Mission for Self RelianceWith Kriti Khurana
- Along With the Base-Year Revision of GDP, We Need Transparency ↗With N. K. Sharma, Sanjay Kumar
- Don’t count on rural recovery by looking at crop output ↗With Kriti Khurana
- US Challenges India in the World Trade Organization Yet Again ↗With Shweta Saini
- WTO spotlight on MSP, export bans ↗With Shweta Saini
- A missed opportunity on kickstarting farm reform ↗With Shweta Saini
- Sowing the seeds of a farm growth revival ↗With Shweta Saini
- Can India Become A Reliable Exporter Of Agricultural Produce? ↗With Kriti Khurana
- Minimum price support, maximum gain for farmers ↗With Kriti Khurana
- Challenges in Meeting Ethanol Fuel Blending Target by 2025-26 ↗With Shweta Saini, Pulkit Khatri
- Are farmers reluctant to diversify beyond paddy and wheat? ↗With Kriti Khurana
- India Is Likely to Miss its Ethanol Blending Target This Year ↗With Shweta Saini
- MSP continues to be important for India’s food security ↗With Kriti Khurana
- Can PM-Kisan be fine-tuned for better impact? ↗With Seema Bathla
- Food inflation could give government sleepless nights ↗With Kriti Khurana
- States must act on perishables inflation – Here’s why ↗With Kriti Khurana
- Ban on rice exports was not unexpected ↗With Seema Bathla
- Soybean should become the next egg. Needs NECC-type campaign, support ↗With Kriti Khurana
- Karnataka Becomes an Accidental Pioneer of Cash Transfers for Food ↗With Shweta Saini
- Modi govt’s Mission Mustard ended up burdening farmers. Now it must diversify the basket ↗With Shweta Saini, Roamaa Suri
- How effective were agriculture development funds announced in Budgets ↗With Kriti Khurana
- Food Loss and Wastage Contribute to Food Insecurity
- Is India’s Agri-Food Story on Right Growth Trajectory?
- What Explains the Vacancies in the Top Posts of Indian PSEs? ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Inflation pinching your pocket? There is more in the pipeline. But god can help ↗With Saini, Pulkit Khatri
- A Fresh Spike in Farmer Suicides in Punjab ↗With Shweta Saini, Pulkit Khatri
- Why India's WTO Battle over Food Stocks is Important ↗With Shweta Saini
- India has a dal problem – open import policy is hurting prices and farmers ↗With Shweta Saini, Pulkit Khatri
- Trade restrictions harm the terms of trade for farmers ↗With Shweta Saini
- India had dropped the ball & exported excess wheat in 2004-05. Modi govt shouldn’t repeat it ↗With Shweta Saini, Pulkit Khatri
- Farm loan waivers: Farmer indebtedness a symptom, not the syndrome ↗With Shweta Saini, Pulkit Khatri
- In Wake of Ukraine War, India Set to See Rising Food Grain Prices ↗With Shweta Saini
- What Two New Surveys Say About the State of DBT's Last Mile Woes ↗With Aarushi Gupta, Indradeep Ghosh
- Congress, BJP, AAP all promise farm loan waivers. But here’s its real cost on states ↗With Shweta Saini, Pulkit Khatri
- Budget 2022-23: Not likely to make much impact on agriculture ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Push a new crop of reforms ↗With Shweta Saini
- Crop diversification a must for raising farm income ↗With Shweta Saini
- What will be the future of agriculture reforms? ↗With Seema Bathla
- Five lessons the farm laws saga has taught Indians ↗With Shweta Saini
- Ethanol Blending in India: What are the Chances? ↗With Harsh Vardhan
- Leveraging India’s Aadhaar platform to ease COVID-19 ↗With Shweta Saini
- National Mission On Edible Oils – Promising If It Remains Farmer Centric ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- What Explains the Sudden SEBI Ban on Future Contracts in Chana? ↗With Tirtha Chatterjee
- Processed food can repeat India’s automobile export success ↗With Seema Bathla
- A New Calculation for the Beneficaries of India's Food Security Act ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Pulses Stock Limit Order Delivers A Rude Surprise ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Wages of Fear ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Liquor duty to dairy — What we can expect in the India-EU trade negotiations ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Covid-19 vaccine import: Urea offers a precedent ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Impact of COVID-19 second wave on India’s agriculture ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Once Again, the Centre Has Excess Wheat, Rice Stocks. What Are Its Options? ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Of the three farm laws, Essential Commodities Act 2020 most business friendly ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Budget 2021-22: Agriculture, procurement, and food security ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Is there a reason for the IAS to worry? ↗With Aditi Mehta
- Getting the Investment-Subsidy Mix Right in Indian Agriculture ↗With Seema Bathla
- Need for 10-year, state-wise procurement plan for rice and wheat ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- The Plan The Centre Should Put To Punjab And Haryana’s Farmers ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- This Van Mahotsav, India Should Stop Missing the Trees For the Woods ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Can MGNREGA Be Reshaped and Reoriented to Help India's Farmers? ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Will Indian agriculture come out relatively unscathed in FY 2021? ↗With Jugal Mohapatra
- Not at the cost of food security. ↗With Ajit Ranade
- Let no one go hungry ↗With Ajit Ranade
- Modi’s ethanol solution won’t lower cane arrears ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Premium delayed, farmer denied ↗With Ashok Gulati
- How to help the farmer ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Left behind on the farm ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Onion tears and how to wipe them ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Innovators, not pirates ↗With Ashok Gulati
- A sketchy roadmap ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Everybody loves a good crop ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Lessons for the field ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Farm and the Tax ↗With Ashok Gulati
- An unfulfilled farm Manifesto ↗With Ashok Gulati
- The faraway fields ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Prelude to a contagion ↗With Ashok Gulati
- No one loves the farmer ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Getting Agriculture on Track ↗With Ashok Gulati
- Partial security for farmers ↗With Ashok Gulati
- How to sow a reform ↗With Ashok Gulati
- No Feel for the Pulse ↗With Ashok Gulati
Published in
BBC · BBC Hindi · BloombergQuint · Business Today · Business World · Deccan Herald · DNA · Down To Earth · East Asia Forum · The Economic Times · The Financial Express · The Hindu · The Hindu BusinessLine · Hindustan Times · India Today · The Indian Express · Mint · Moneycontrol · ThePrint · Rajasthan Patrika · Times of India · The Tribune · The Wire
02
Research and Publications
AWARD
RT Doshi Best Paper Award, Agricultural Economics Research Association (India), for “Indian sugar policies: connecting production, consumption and health” (with Shweta Saini and Pulkit Khatri, 2022).
Journal articles
- New Series of Consumer Price Index: A Case of Many Slips
- Beyond Loan Waivers: Empirical Evidence from Punjab, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh on Farmer Distress and Coping Mechanisms
- Does India have enough feedstock to meet its E20 fuel-blending targets by 2025?
- Indian Sugar Policies: Connecting Production, Consumption and Health
- Special issue on Agriculture (editor)
Book chapters
- Farmers and Consumers in Competition
- National Monetisation Pipeline: Silos and the Future of the Public Distribution System
- Structural Reforms and Governance Issues in Indian Agriculture
- Still in Chaos
- Performance of Agriculture in Gujarat
- Structural Pitfalls: MGNREGA’s Lost Potential
- Future of Indian Agriculture in Post Covid-19 World
- DFI: Work in Progress
- Seeds of the Future
- Value Education in Universities: Experience of Jamia Hamdard
- Strengthening the Role of Institutional Agencies for Optimising Fertiliser Distribution
Working papers, reports and studies
- 2025Doubling Farmers’ Income: A Promising Target fraught with Challenges — Policy Paper, India International Centre
- 2024Boosting Agri Exports through Investment in Infrastructure: Trends, Barriers and Potential — Centre for Agri Infrastructure Research and Action, Infravision Foundation
- 2024Feasibility of a Nationwide Warehouse Receipt System for Bangladesh — IFPRI Working Paper ↗
- 2024Unconditional Cash Transfers for Rice in Karnataka: A Study of Beneficiary Responses and Challenges under the Anna Bhagya Scheme
- 2024Change in Farmers’ Stocking and Marketing Decisions: Findings from Survey of Gram and Mustard Farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan — Arcus Research Report 4
- 2024Challenges in Meeting Ethanol Fuel Blending Target by 2025-26 — The India Forum
- 2023Can India Achieve 20 Percent Fuel Blending by 2025-26? An Assessment of Raw Material Availability — Special Report, Arcus Policy Research
- 2022Farm Loan Waivers in India — Assessing Impact and Looking Ahead, NABARD Research Study 22
- 2022A Fresh Spike in Farmer Suicides in Punjab — The India Forum
- 20225 Years of GST — Beaver Away for Taxpayers Who File Returns Themselves — in The Buggy Chugs On, Tax India Online
- 2021Performance of Agriculture in Uttar Pradesh: Region-wise Analysis — ICRIER
- 2018Supporting Indian Farmers: Price Support or Direct Income/Investment Support? — ICRIER Working Paper 357
- 2018Crop Insurance in India: Key Issues and Way Forward — ICRIER Working Paper 352
- 2017Agricultural Commodity Futures: Searching for Potential Winners — ICRIER Working Paper 349
- 2017Indian Food and Welfare Schemes: Scope for Digitization towards Cash Transfers — ICRIER Working Paper 343; also ZEF Discussion Paper 241, University of Bonn
- 2017Getting Punjab Agriculture Back on High Growth Path: Sources, Drivers and Policy Lessons — ICRIER
- 2017Doubling Agricultural Growth in Uttar Pradesh: Sources and Drivers of Agricultural Growth and Policy Lessons — ICRIER