-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A strong political fight has erupted between the government and the opposition parties over providing relief to farmers suffering crop loss due to unseasonable rains and hailstorm. Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused the opposition of spreading lies on the land acquisition bill, Congress hit back and accused Modi of somersault on farmers' issue. Ahmed Patel, Political Secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, said farmers...

-Livemint.com Farm-loan waivers are costly palliatives that cause long-term damage Every decade or so India's farmers finds themselves in distress. Crop prices plunge, debts mount and if there is real bad luck, the monsoon fails. Soon enough farmers begin committing suicides and in the din of noise about agrarian distress the government of the day takes some steps. They are no more than palliatives and end up doing more harm than good. Please...

-Business Standard Marriages on hold, children being returned from schools over unpaid fees; the rural economy is bearing the brunt of unseasonal rains, a crisis in the sugar cane sector and a fall in prices of farm pro Hapur/ Meerut: In the mid-afternoon, when most farmers are returning home to rest, Rana Ranjit Singh is sweating buckets on his farm in Uttar Pradesh's Hapur district, searching for vegetables left undamaged after untimely...

-Livemint.com A Mint analysis based on a wide range of district level indicators of assets and amenities shows how Maharashtra's wealth is very unevenly spread If India is a land of contradictions, Maharashtra is its befitting exemplar. It is at once the country's cradle of wealth and its most poignant symbol of agrarian distress, where many millionaires are born, and many farmers commit suicides each year. Maharashtra is the wealthiest of all...

-PTI Maharashtra has reported 135 cases of farmers' suicide in the Aurangabad division during a short period of the first 58 days in 2015 due to successive natural calamities and scarcity situation. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kundaria also said: "In the last three years i.e. 2012, 2013 and 2014, there were 662 cases of farmers' suicide which were eligible for compensation of...