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AGRICULTURE—IT STILL MAKES AND BREAKS

Nothing has helped more Indians to prosper, and nothing has led more of them to ruin, than agriculture. Yet, generation after generation of Indians has continued to live on it, work for it, and spin its dreams around it. That is the essence of India, a timeless fact that nothing in the foreseeable future can possibly change. Agriculture's share in the GDP has already shrunk from around 70 per cent at the time of independence to around 25 per cent by the early years of the 21st century. Some schools of opinion feel that the time has come to move out of the traditional mould and this share should go down broadly to the levels that exist in quite a few Asian countries.

In Indonesia, it was close to 16 per ...

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