-DNA   Jaipur: Rajasthan government has doubled the number of employment days for tribals in Udaipur and Baran districts under the MNERGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act) in a year. This would take the number of working days from the present mandatory 100 days to 200 days. This increase would provide guaranteed six months of employment to the tribals. The tribes that would benefit from this would be Saharia and Kharua...

-The Hindu Fifty years since the Green Revolution, the architect of the reform highlights the crisis facing Indian agriculture today It is 11 years since agronomist M.S. Swaminathan handed over his recommendations for improving the state of agriculture in India to the former United Progressive Alliance government, at the height of the Vidarbha farmer suicides crisis, but they are still to be implemented. To address the agrarian crisis and farmers’ unrest across...

-The Hindu Business Line Total burden could swell to Rs. 2.7 lakh cr New Delhi: Farm loan waivers could be detrimental to the economy as they could reduce aggregate demand by 0.7 per cent of GDP, imparting a significant deflationary shock to the economy, the Survey said. There is visible farm stress, even though it is not as widespread as it is made out to be, the Survey said, adding that the drastic...

-Livemint.com Unlike the dhoti-clad, topi-wearing quintessential ‘kisan’, the new Indian farmer is vocal and tech-savvy New Delhi: In the winter of 1988 when the feisty farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, laid siege to Delhi with thousands of cultivators and their cattle literally creating a mess of the boat club lawns, agriculture’s share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 30%. About three decades later, the farm sector’s share in...

-The Hindu Business Line High inputs costs, low price for produce and water scarcity are major challenges Mumbai: Despite the Rs. 34,000 crore farm-loan waiver in Maharashtra, farmers’ lives are unlikely to change for the better as they will continue to be up against familiar problems such as high input costs, low prices for their produce, and scant water availability, say farm sector experts. They are of the opinion that the core issues...