Following solution worked for me. When connecting to the db, specify that data should be truncated if they are too long (jdbcCompliantTruncation). My link looks like this:
jdbc:mysql://SERVER:PORT_NO/SCHEMA?sessionVariables=sql_mode='NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION'&jdbcCompliantTruncation=false
If you increase the size of the strings, you may face the same problem in future if the string you are attempting to store into the DB is longer than the new size.
EDIT: STRICT_TRANS_TABLES has to be removed from sql_mode as well.