-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Farmers have started preparing land for growing kharif crops following onset of monsoon rains in some parts of the country. This time round, farmers are expected to bring 107 million hectares under cultivation for paddy, soyabean, pulses, cotton, bajra, jowar, groundnut and maize, raising hopes of a bigger grain harvest this year. Companies and analysts said the acreage under cotton could surpass soyabean and pulses as prices are...

-The Times of India Demands for loan write-offs being stonewalled by the government seems to be the primary reason driving the country's farm folk to protests that are periodically degenerating into violence. Additionally, the governments' unwillingness to increase the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to check food-induced inflation that would impact voters, too, could be a factor. While UP government's decision on April 12 to announce loan waiver for the state's three crore farmers...

-The Economic Times blog Finance minister Arun Jaitley was correct when he stated in April that constitutional constraints do not empower his government to tax agricultural income, implying that he is not constrained from amending the Income-Tax Act. B R Ambedkar, in framing the Constitution, was vehemently critical of British land revenue system, the foundation for which was laid during the Mughal period, and strengthened by the East India Company, which...

-Livemint.com Maharashtra farmers continue with their protests despite assurance from chief minister Devendra Fadnavis of a debt waiver by October New Delhi: The fifth day of the strike by protesting farmers in Maharashtra on Monday witnessed unprecedented visuals of milk tankers being ferried to state capital Mumbai under heavy police cover. Not long ago, before the monsoons arrived last year, rail wagons transporting water to severely drought-hit districts in the state were...

-The Times of India INDORE: At least five persons were killed and over a dozen injured when shots were fired during a protest by farmers in Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday. Curfew has been clamped in Mandsaur and Pipliamandi and internet connectivity has been severed. The death toll, it is feared, may rise. The farmers were demanding that the government grant them a loan waiver and set a minimum...