-The Hindu Business Line To help farmers, a long-term plan to improve input delivery, irrigation and rural infrastructure is a must Some 60 years ago, the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said: “Everything can wait except agriculture”. But for the last two decades, agriculture has been waiting even as the economy has continued to make rapid strides. The country is today paying a price for the omissions and commissions of successive governments...

-The Hindu Business Line Export SOPs, higher consumption to help get rid of excess milk powder stocks The New Year is set to bring smiles on the faces of dairy farmers, thanks to firm prices of the skimmed milk powder (SMP) following export incentives by the government. Most co-operative dairies and private players were able to get rid of their excess SMP stock, which led to firming up of prices by at least...

-The Hindu The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will record biometric data including the fingerprints and iris scans of about 30 lakh applicants who have sought to be included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) after having been excluded from the final draft published last year. Almost 30 lakh out of the 40 lakh people who found their names missing from the NRC had filed claims to be included during...

-The Hindu In addition to reforming the credit system, agriculture should be made profitable Rural agrarian distress is firmly at the centre of the national discourse today, triggered by the recent Assembly election results in the Hindi heartland as well as continuous farmer agitations in the past two years (picture). Just a month ago, the farmers’ march in Delhi highlighted the reality of their deprivation, anger and resolve. Quite remarkably, their presence...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The Odisha and the Jharkhand governments on Friday joined the list of states doling out SOPs for farmers after the Congress scripted wins in three states riding on the promise of farm loan waiver. While Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced the Rs 10,000-crore scheme for the overall development of farmers in the state, Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das declared the Rs 2,250-crore scheme to help 22.76 lakh medium...