-The Tribune In Sirsa, Private Players are buying cotton at up to Rs 9,700 per quintal whereas the government has fixed the MSP at Rs 5,925 Sirsa: The low cotton yield this season due to excessive rain and pink bollworm attack has resulted in the crop selling at over 60 per cent higher than the minimum support price (MSP). In Sirsa, Private Players are buying cotton at up to Rs 9,700 per...

-The Tribune Kurukshetra: Shortage of DAP has triggered panic among farmers. They have started looking for fertiliser for the wheat-sowing season, but DAP is not easily available. Meanwhile, long queues were witnessed in Shahabad where the farmers had gathered to procure DAP. The farmers alleged that an artificial shortage was being created and Private Players were minting money by selling the fertiliser at exorbitant rates. Sanjeev, a farmer from Alampur village, said: “Farmers...

-The Hindu ‘Private hospitals procure vaccines directly from manufacturers, so no data available’ The Health Ministry says it does not know how many COVID-19 vaccines were procured by Private Players, nor does it have separate data on how many vaccine doses were administered by private hospitals and service providers, according to its response to a Right to Information request filed by Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd). Despite the fact that the government had reserved...

-Frontline.thehindu.com The RBI’s proposal to loosen regulations for private lenders in the microfinance space will have disastrous consequences for the poor, especially women in rural areas. Microfinance, a category of financial services aimed at serving people from low-income households who lack access to conventional banking credit and services, was originally designed by international finance capital institutions such as the World Bank as an alternative to providing direct concessional credit to the poor—which...

-Livemint.com Amid a bumper wheat crop, India’s farmers sold more wheat to the government than ever before. Government procurement has only grown in recent years, making farmers wary of any attempt to dial back the role of the state in the farm sector This rabi marketing season has seen the highest procurement of wheat by government agencies in history. At 43 million tonnes, this is 33% higher than the average for the...