-The Hindu Business Line Costs, prices, credit issues are a challenge, just as in other States Ahead of the Assembly elections, the Gujarat government has announced a slew of measures to woo rural voters. This includes waiver of GST on equipment used in micro-irrigation, 0 interest on loans up to ?3 lakh for farmers, and a bonus of ?500 per quintal on cotton. But these sops are not likely to make farmers in...

-Livemint.com In India, 9 million people left farming between 2001 and 2011 largely due to distress, not because industry invited them, says Shyam Khadka, India’s representative at the FAO Shyam Khadka, India’s representative at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, says more Indians are moving out of agriculture due to distress and not because the manufacturing sector is inviting them. In an interview, Khadka calls for converting food...

-Scroll.in JNU professor Himanshu says the economic slowdown is not the result of a one-off event like demonetisation, the slump began almost two years ago. The economy is in a trough. The first quarter of 2017-2018 saw the growth of gross domestic product (the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a year) drop to 5.7% from 7.9% in the corresponding period last year – the...

-The Hindu Business Line At an organic market in Odisha, middle-class consumers get to interact with the producers of their food and appreciate traditional knowledge systems One Sunday morning in January, I visited an organic produce market located amidst dense bougainvillea creepers and rows of trees, on the grounds of the six-decade-old Christian Hospital in Bissamcuttack, a town in western Odisha’s Rayagada district. In policy and public imagination, Odisha, particularly its western districts...

-Livemint.com Rainfall in the entire country in August has seen a deficit of 23% so far, according to IMD data New Delhi: A patch of red signifying deficit rains, cutting across the length of India from Haryana in the north to Kerala in the south, is threatening to worsen farm distress, shows rainfall data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The June to September south-west monsoon which irrigates over half of India’s crop...