-The Times of India AURANGABAD: With the worsening drought situation in the region, farmer suicides continue unabated this year. About 300 farmers have taken their lives since January this year. The highest number (83) of farmer suicides has been reported from Beed district, followed by Nanded with 55 deaths and Osmanabad with 50 cases. Last year, a total of 569 farmers in the region had taken their lives. Osmanabad is one of the...

-ANI Chennai: Indian agriculture is at the cross roads, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, father of India's first Green Revolution, has warned. Lamenting on the state of Indian farmers, especially farmers with small land-holdings, Dr. Swaminathan said, "The market economy certainly is not friendly to small farmers. WTO regulations are also hindrance. Even in the United States which is the heartland of the free market economy, farmers are insulated from market shocks through heavy...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre plans to change the criteria for selecting the beneficiaries of its rural housing scheme for the poor, dropping the earlier poverty-list-based method for one that uses a points system based on the ongoing caste census. The government believes the proposed reform will achieve better targeting by including deserving families left out of the below-poverty-line (BPL) list, but critics feel it would leave a huge number of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: As different governmental and non-governmental agencies prepare to move from rescue to rehabilitation phase in quake-struck Nepal, the father of India's green revolution M S Swaminathan on Tuesday called for adopting the Kutch model to mitigate the suffering of those affected in both countries. Referring to "habitation-cum-rehabilitation programme" of Kutch in Gujarat that was ravaged by a powerful earthquake in 2001, Swaminathan said the model involved...

-The Hindu "At least 50 deaths of farmers either by suicide or cardiac arrest have been reported and government has done nothing about it." Brown, damaged wheat fields is all one gets to see in Sonepat district of Haryana. In at least six villages The Hindu surveyed, deaths of farmers, either by suicide or cardiac arrest, have occurred following the shock of crop loss due to unseasonal rain. Yet, last week in...