-TheWire.in On January 1, an 80-year-old woman died of starvation. The family slipped through the many government schemes meant to provide relief. Outside her deceased mother’s rented house in Mahuadanr block of Jharkhand’s Latehar district sat Bhagiya Birjain. Bhagiya, a widow, lived in a nearby settlement after her marriage. She was the first to arrive after hearing that her mother, Budhni Birjiyan, 80, died while she was alone, on the night of...

-The Hindu In case of loan in both cooperative and commercial banks, the former qualifies for waiver Bengaluru: The intensive de-duplication work to identity farmers eligible for loan waiver is expected to identify at least 7 lakh people who have loans in both cooperative sector and commercial banks, resulting in saving of at least Rs.6,000 crore to the State exchequer. A farmer will be eligible for loan waiver from one of the...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...

-Financial Express Farm loan waivers—of more than Rs 850 billion in FY18 and FY19, announced by various state governments—are the flavour of the season. This can affect credit offtake and induce further stress for banks and amount to another agrarian crisis. Farm sector NPAs accounted for 16% of banks’ advances under the priority sector lending in October 2018. Post the early waiver-announcements, credit growth in agriculture and allied activities has been...

-TheNewsMinute.com Due to poverty and dependence on government rations, the communities had become malnourished and prone to several non-communicable diseases. But they soon realised that the solution to their woes was in their past. Three years ago, officials of the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary at Idukki in Kerala conducted a medical camp for the tribal natives residing in the sanctuary. While the officials were expecting to see widespread malnutrition and related ailments, the...