-The Times of India NAGPUR: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday announced ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh to the next of kin of farmers and labourers who died due to pesticide inhalation while spraying crops in Yavatmal district over the last few weeks. An inquiry has also been ordered into the matter under the assistant chief secretary (home). Eighteen farmers were killed due to inhalation of 'profefonos', a pesticide used on...

-Livemint.com 2016 recorded the lowest suicides in the farm sector in over two decades, shows data shared by agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh New Delhi: There is little doubt that 2016 was replete with positive data on agriculture sector—a normal monsoon, record production of grains and perishables, and a rebound in the farm sector growth after consecutive years of drought-induced dismal performance. However, this positive data failed to lift farmers’ sentiment because...

-The Hindu "Your job is to take steps to prevent farmers’ suicides and not go around distributing compensation after the suicides", the Supreme Court told the Tamil Nadu government on Friday. The court said the “actual job” of the government is to “directly address the ground reality of farmers suicides”. “Your approach has to be preventive and not compensatory,” a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and A.M. Khanwilkar told Additional Solicitor General P....

-The Hindu Information has not graduated to storytelling to dent the regime’s idea of agricultural policy I remember years ago the Delhi School of Economics had many great scholars visit the campus. They talked passionately and knowledgeably not just about the subject but about knowledge as a vocation. One of the most memorable of these performances was by Teodor Shanin, the economic historian who also edited Peasants and Peasant Societies. He talked...

-TheWire.in While suicides and shock deaths have seen a sudden spike in Tamil Nadu’s Cauvery delta region, the government does not believe the drought is the cause and is continuing to direct water away from rural areas. From the banks of the Kollidam river, S. Selvaraju’s farm is barely a mile away. The huge river, actually a tributary of the Cauvery that drains its surplus water into the sea, runs along the village...