-The Hindu ‘Crop damage from pests contained’ Coimbatore: The Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) estimates cotton production for this season (October 2017 to September 2018) to be 370 lakh bales. The board had estimated cotton production to be 345 lakh bales and exports at 59 lakh bales for the season when it had met in December. Bollworm attack Production estimates were lower in the beginning of the season as the board expected damage to the crop...

-Livemint.com The ratio of currency in circulation as share of broad money is back at pre-demonetisation levels, according to Reserve Bank of India data On 8 November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the “demonetisation” of high-value currency notes. When it became clear the ex ante goals of reducing corruption and black money were unlikely to succeed, attention shifted to a range of possible ex post facto rationales for the move. Numerous...

-TheWire.in With pending dues of Rs 22,000 crore, sugarcane farmers in the country continue to suffer as the Centre’s package to ‘address the current crisis’ proves thoroughly inadequate and misdirected. The Wire takes a deep dive into the sugarcane crisis. Shamli: On a hot May afternoon, a long queue of tractor trolleys loaded beyond capacity with sugarcane, are lined up outside the Upper Doab Sugar Mills in Shamli district – in...

-The Telegraph Why farmers worry when Bhutan lifts stones Saralpara (India-Bhutan border): Since the 1990s, Anarshi Iswary and nearly 500 other farmers from five villages here have been joining hands every Wednesday during the monsoon to build, repair or rebuild a makeshift stone dam on the Saralbhanga, flowing down the hills of Bhutan about 4km away. The Sarpang district administration in Bhutan gives permission with a condition: no digging of the riverbed. The nine-foot-tall...

-Hindustan Times Osmanabad, and Yavatmal in Vidarbha are two of the worst affected districts in the state, in the last seven years. In a recent study of 450 families that have witnessed farmer suicides in Osmanabad district of Marathwada, the Tata Institute of Social Studies (TISS) found that farmers from nuclear families are more vulnerable to commit suicide than those in joint families. Osmanabad, and Yavatmal in Vidarbha are two of the worst...