-NDTV The Supreme Court asked the Tamil Nadu government to install a process by which farmers can report misbehavior by bank officials while trying to make them pay up. New Delhi: The government's job is to prevent farmers from committing suicide and not distribute compensation after they have died, the Supreme Court told Tamil Nadu in strong words today, asking it to ensure that no coercive action is taken against...

-Outlook Good monsoon or bad, glut or drought, boom or bust...it’s always fair weather for the range of MIddlemen who come between the farmer and consumer. An anatomy of the trade. One of the axioms of logic is called the Law of the Excluded Middle. Something has to be eit­her true or false—there’s no middle ground. As we all know, economics works a bit differently. Facts can be fickle, data pliable, and...

-The Financial Express A half-dozen years ago, I participated in a conference on water resource challenges in India. I remember Upmanu Lall, professor at Columbia University, graphically and bluntly making the point that Punjab’s water table was not far from collapse. This has been known for years, and there have been feeble efforts to deal with the problem, but they have been far short of what is needed. My own understanding...

-The Economic Times MUMBAI: What has made the Maharashtra farmer hit the streets, dump his produce and even attack suppliers? A combination of weather, unscrupulous MIddlemen and lack of discretion on crop seems to have wreaked havoc on their lives. Rainfall in Maharashtra has been deficient in 2011 and the situation turned worse leading to a severe drought till 2015. In 2016, farmers got relief with normal rains, when they got back...

-The Hindu Scope for the MIddlemen has increased, says IIT professor Reetika Khera In Bandaveedhi village in Paderu in Visakhapatnam agency, 400 residents had gone without the basic food items from the public distribution system (PDS) in April, as the officer concerned had a marriage at home and had no time to switch on the biometric machine that would record the finger prints of the beneficiaries. In Kasimkota, Padma, 70, was sent...