-The Economic Times For many, it is a sense of deja vu. Fifteen years ago, the government and India's financial regulators came under fire after hundreds of crores were cleaned up by a few individuals and entities from gullible investors, who were promised fabulous returns from plantation schemes. In the uproar that followed, the government and the regulators sought to palm off the responsibility of regulation of such schemes on each...

-The Hindu Carbon credit system paying rich dividends to farmers too Chennai: In a silent afforestation campaign, a private company has successfully raised more than a million trees on private lands in five districts in the State and recorded a survival rate of 90 per cent. Giving details to The Hindu about the successful planting of saplings and raising them to trees, A. Joseph Rexon, Director, TIST Tree Planting India programme, said it...

-Live Mint In the two years to March 2012, the number of kisan credit cards grew by 28%, while the outstanding amount grew by 76% So far, the rural job-guarantee scheme, other social programmes by state governments and the raising of minimum support prices to farmers have been cited as reasons for the continued buoyancy in rural consumption and also for inflation in food items. But there could be another insidious...

-Frontline The Land Acquisition Bill runs into a roadblock as political parties fail to reach an agreement on the substantive features of the draft Bill or on the amendments proposed. The efforts of the United Progressive Alliance government to broker a consensus on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2012, which has been pending for over a year, have not paid off not because...

-The Hindu A NABARD survey says middlemen funded by banks have kept growers captive to high-interest loans Jammu: Kashmir's acres of undulating apple orchards may soon be waste lands, a survey by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) accessed by The Hindu shows. The Rs. 4,000-crore industry has been brought to its knees by a network of middle-order market functionaries comprising pre-harvest contractors (PHCs), commission agents (CAs) and wholesalers...