The study analyses the relationship between formal agricultural credit and agricultural productivity in India. Secondary data have been collected from various sources for the selected states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal for the time period 1990–1991 to 2017–2018. Fixed effect model is used to perform the state‐level panel data analysis to establish the relationship between the agricultural credit and agricultural productivity. In addition to this, the study also focuses on analysing the effectiveness of Doubling of agricultural credit policy. The findings from the analysis show that direct agricultural credit and doubling of agricultural credit policy has a positive impact on productivity, whereas the indirect credit has a significant negative impact on productivity. In order to increase agricultural productivity, policies should focus on providing direct credit at a larger scale.

Challenges to internal security of India are numerous. The extent and scope of threats are complex, varied and vast. No other country in the world confronts so many threats, with so much intensity, at the same time. Overall, more than 50 per cent of India is said to be affected by one or the other of these threats, which are not just ‘law and order’ problems. They have increasing external dimension falsifying conventional wisdom that internal security threats are caused mainly by internal sources. They threaten the body politic like a ‘cancer’. The state of poor internal security situation is not because of India’s unfavourable strategic environment but also due to weak internal security mechanism, especially its criminal justice system. In this context, the article argues that if appropriate actions are not taken, the threats may result in the gradual degradation of the Indian State. It suggests renewed set of policies and mechanisms in political, economic, socio-cultural, military and diplomatic arena.

India’s relations with its neighbours in the maritime domain have received less scholarly attention. Those studies that deal with India’s relations with its South Asian neighbours generally touch on political security, socio-cultural and economic issues. The maritime aspect is either ignored or tucked in as a part of other dimensions. The present study attempts to fill the gap in the literature by taking up the case of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is chosen as a case, not only because the island state is India’s closest maritime neighbour but also due to the existence of deep interactions between the two countries in diverse fields both at governmental and non-governmental levels. In the maritime domain, in the present context, technically speaking, there is no problem between the two countries. However, the fishermen issue remains one of the issues principally because of the Tamil Nadu factor. Analysing the issue in five phases, the study argues for a ‘comprehensive approach’ for its settlement.1

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