-The Indian Express AIIB meeting presents an opportunity to redefine the parameters of development. Budha Ismail Jam, a fisherman from Kutch, will be unknown to most delegates at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB) annual meeting being held in Mumbai on June 25-26. Yet, Jam’s story has far-reaching implications if infrastructure projects are to be more focused on the well-being of people rather than the profit margins of investors. The third annual meeting...

-PTI   New Delhi: Heads of 11-state owned banks will apprise a parliamentary committee about the problems of mounting bad loans and increasing fraud cases on Tuesday, sources said. They will be appearing before the Standing Committee on Finance, headed by veteran Congress leader M Veerappa Moily, which is looking into ‘Banking Sector in India- Issues, Challenges and the Way Forward, including Non- Performing Assets/ Stressed Assets in Banks/Financial Institutions’. Top officials of IDBI...

-The Tribune Agrarian society vs a non-agrarian economy poses a huge political challenge. JUST how many farmers are there in India? This is not merely a statistical question. This is a question of policy and political significance. We have all grown up reading about India as an agrarian economy, with a majority of its population engaged in farming. Does that continue to be the case? Or has the number of farmers declined...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org Imagine a democratic protest where a million farmers, labourers and others march to the capital and compel discussion of the exploding crisis of the countryside in a special three-week session of Parliament India’s agrarian crisis has gone beyond the agrarian. It’s a crisis of society. Maybe even a civilizational crisis, with perhaps the largest body of small farmers and labourers on earth fighting to save their livelihoods. The agrarian crisis is no...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: As apprehended, the already distressed Vidarbha farmers are facing a severe cash crunch because of government apathy on three fronts. First, payments for tur and chana procured at MSP have been delayed. Then roll-out of loan waiver has been total mess and could not be completed a year after its announcement. Now, nationalized banks are reluctant to provide crop loans. With rains having arrived, farmers are running...