-ThePrint.in Irrespective of its merits and eventual fate, the basic income proposal means that this election is now focused firmly on the economy. Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s announcement about minimum income guarantee (MIG) is the first big idea introduced in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. So far, the election was building up towards one of the many vacuous and noisy contestations that we have witnessed in the last few...

-TheWire.in A figure is based on data compiled by farmer union Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan). New Delhi: Debt has continued to overwhelm farmers in Punjab since the rollout of Congress’s loan waiver scheme in January 2018. Four hundred thirty farmers and farm labourers with outstanding loans ranging between Rs 1-20 lakh committed suicide in the intervening one year period, the Indian Express reported. The data, which is based on revenue department and police records,...

-The Hindu Business Line It scores over loan waivers as it benefits all farmers and gives them more control over the cultivation and sale of their produce There is an illusion across various quarters that a one-time farm loan waiver can remove all the hardships farmers have been going through over the last 15 years or so. This illusion has been occupying more space in public discourse in recent months because of...

-The Hindu The solution lies in better schemes that ensure universal coverage for small, marginal and medium-sized farmers To do or not to do? According to reports, the Central government is discussing a scheme to waive outstanding farm loans in the aftermath of widespread farmers’ protests between March and December 2018 . Till now, at least 11 States have announced schemes to waive outstanding farm loans: Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil...

-PTI Agar Malwa: A 55-year-old farmer in Madhya Pradesh was taken aback when he got a loan waiver of just Rs 13 instead of Rs 23,815 he was eligible for under a scheme announced by the newly elected Congress government. Shivlal Kataria, a resident of Nipania Baijnath village in Agar Malwa district, has taken up the matter with the authorities and is hopeful of its resolution. Earlier this month, the Madhya Pradesh Cabinet...