-Business Standard While ADVVDRS was hailed as a key reason for UPA's return to power in 2009, the scheme itself later drew flak for its flaws, with CAG finding many of the accounts ineligible for waiver or relief In order to help the country’s small and marginal farmers, the Congress pARTy has promised to bring a nationwide loan waiver scheme on the lines of its 2009 programme, should the pARTy be voted...

-The Indian Express The demand is a call for upholding local practices of belonging On March 12, about 50,000 farmers reached Mumbai, walking 165 km in the hope that their elected representatives would listen when they spoke. A majority of these farmers were Adivasis and one of their demands was the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and through it, their land rights. The FRA was enacted in 2006 with the...

-Economic and Political Weekly The historical review of growth of agriculture in Punjab shows that ignoring basic research and hierarchical domination in research and policy formulation led to the crisis we see today. Two measures can help improve the situation in the long run. Basic and fundamental research will be intrinsic to ameliorate the current problems and for future agricultural growth. The existing agricultural research and policy formulation system should be...

-The Hindu Business Line WRMS forecasts deficit rains for Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu Thiruvananthapuram: In what is seen as the first official outlook for year 2018 monsoon, private forecaster Weather Risk Management Services (WRMS) has said that the June-September rainfall would be largely on the ‘positive side of normal’ (normal to above normal). The forecast comes in the backdrop of a season that flattered to deceive in the just past year, recording only...

-The Indian Express Forest Rights Act is not an obstacle to growth. Its non-implementation will be politically counter-productive. The farmers’ and forest dwellers’ march from Nashik to Mumbai, and the Maharashtra government’s decision to approve most of their demands within the next six months, has established the fact that land and forest rights are going to be determining factors for political establishments across India. The protest in Mumbai tells us that a...