-The Times of India PATIALA (Punjab): Even as Haryana is going to elections amid political parties' claims about development, a recently published study in a reputed economic journal has revealed that over 80% farmers in the state are reeling under debt. The study also exposed that nearly a same number of farmers are living below poverty line if one goes by the World Bank's definition of "moderate poverty", which means an earning...

-The Indian Express Ill-thought-out assertions about the efficacy of monetary policy can unhinge private expectations of inflation. The Indian Express recently published two articles by Surjit S. Bhalla on the subject of inflation in India (‘Where monetary policy is irrelevant', September 13 and ‘RBI, we have a problem', September 20). Bhalla's central thesis is that inflation in India is primarily driven by changes in the MInimum Support Prices (MSP) for agricultural goods....

-The Economic Times Dinkar Patil, a farmer from Buldhana district in Vidarbha, Maharashtra, normally cultivates cotton on his 13-acre farm land. This year, however, he has skipped the cotton crop and opted for soyabean and tur dal. "The rainfall started late. I did not cultivate cotton because of the delayed rains and the huge increase in cost of cultivation of the crop," said Patil. He is expecting a fall of about...

-The Business Standard WTO reconvenes to re-examine issue of agriculture subsidies, numbers alone suggest that India has a strong case for declining to sign WTO's TFA The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is reconvening in the last week of September to examine the issue of agricultural subsidies against the backdrop of India's refusal to become a signatory to the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) at Bali. Since then, a lot of water has flowed...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The risk of losing room to raise the minimum support price for rice possibly prompted India's hard stand at the WTO in July, which led to the collapse of trade talks. The farm subsidy notification made by India at the WTO earlier this week shows that the subsidy to rice risks exceeding the WTO permissible limit. If there is no relief on the procurement issue, the government...