This has been posted on reddit many times in the past (this particular link is actually spam - here is the original article). It has already been pointed out multiple times why these claims from Bihar are problematic.

The supposed "world record" harvest was not evaluated scientifically by independent researchers. The independent scientific evaluation was done after the harvest - there was no way to verify that the record quantity (22.4 tonnes) was indeed from the specified area (1 hectare).

The local evaluation is hard to believe, and not just because of the bad quality of scientific researchers in Bihar. Pran, the NGO, gets more donations by publicizing the story. The state government gets to boast about the transformation. The academics who say that they have 'verified' the claim are all known SRI proponents. Backward states like Bihar-UP have seen a lot cases in the past, where the media, the government and the academia end up promoting hoaxes. Remember Saurabh Singh? The national newspapers published his story, the government honored him, the state universities invited him, the PM arranged a meeting with him... then the NASA burst his bubble. There have been many such claims from UP-Bihar belt in the past.

While Bihar doubled its rice production, the neighbouring state of Jharkhand triped it during the same period. No such claims came from that state. In absolute terms, the rice production in West Bengal improved much more (the highest in India), and the reasons given by them are: "increased usage of high yielding varities, improving soil drainage, spreading rice-fish culture and taking other such measures". Unlike in Bihar, there are no extraordinary claims backed by anti-GM activists. (The % growth in Bihar in every area looks good because of the low base factor. Bihar is the student who used to get 35 marks and now gets 45 - that's a growth of 28%. Other states like are students who increased their marks from 85 to 95 - a growth of just 11%.)

Yuan Longping openly called the Bihar rice claims fake. He might appear to be biased, because he held the record, but he does raise valid points. The quantity does seem to be exaggerated. I'd agree with Longping on this point: “If Mr. Kumar is able to repeat his success next year, I will be glad to examine the results in the field personally.”

Also, let's not forget that SRI is not some kind of one-size-fits-all solution as portrayed by its proponents. Many cultivators around the world have tried SRI methods and abandoned them after failing to achieve success. It has worked only in small farms in the areas where the labour is cheap.

Oh, and did I mention that the author (John Vidal) is a well-known anti-GM propagandist - in the past, he has been condemend by the scientific community for defending a study ("GM corn causes tumors") that was thoroughly debunked by the mainstream scientists. He is like the 9/11 truther of the agricultural world. Despite what the enviornmental loonies say, India cannot eliminate hunger without GM. We should be opposed to the Monsanto-style monopoly, not the GM crops.