-Down to Earth State pays out 83% of wheat MSP due for rabi season in a month Punjab has successfully paid the lion’s share of price due to wheat farmers for their produce via the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) route as the Rabi marketing season nears its end. However, farmers are unsure about what it will mean for their equation with the aarthiyas or commission agents, who have been their financial backbones...

-Hindustan Times A rapid and universal vaccination programme is essential to control a surge of this magnitude and time is of the essence — for the virus is not standing still The second wave of Covid-19 is overwhelming India. The official death toll is already inching towards 250,000, but this is almost surely a vast underestimate, as the virus sweeps through rural India and kills many whose deaths will never be captured...

In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...

-The Tribune While attracting private capital investments in production, processing and marketing of high-value agriculture, the associated adverse socio-economic implications must be avoided. Last year, Parliament enacted the Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020. It is supposed to empower farmers to get engaged with upgraded value chain partners in a fair, transparent, mutually agreeable and remunerative manner to enhance their income by reducing marketing risks....

-The Indian Express The Central government has fixed the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of wheat at Rs 1975 per quintal, hiking it by Rs 50 from last year’s Rs 1925 per quintal. Chandigarh: Ahead of the wheat procurement that starts from April 10 in the state, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday cleared a sum of Rs 21,658.73 crore towards Cash Credit Limit (CCL) up to end April, 2021 for...