-Livemint.com The delays in Karnataka does not portend well for six other states which have been cleared for drought relief and three more who are yet to hear from the Centre Bengaluru: Farmers in Karnataka who lost crops due to poor rains during last year’s June-September monsoon are expected to get central relief only by May this year due to delays in gathering farmers’ bank account details and logistics hurdles due...

-The Financial Express Turning agriculture around should be the top priority of government in the new year. India became the world’s fastest-growing economy in 2015. Indian agriculture, however, fared much worse. Agriculture grew only by 0.2% in FY15. Two consecutive years of drought, unseasonal rains in rabi season and falling food prices in global markets have driven farmers to desperation. Turning agriculture around should be the top priority of government in the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Heavy losses in rural areas in recent elections have pushed the Narendra Modi government to re-launch its crop insurance scheme with changes to make it more farmer-friendly. The BJP has been asked to go all out to sell the scheme, renamed the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (Prime Minister Crop Insurance Scheme) to emphasise Modi's central role in conceptualising it. Three senior ministers, Rajnath Singh, M. Venkaiah Naidu and...

-The Indian Express A renewed funding squeeze may undermine MGNREGA’s recent revival, fear civil society activists. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme which guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households, may have staged a revival in the last two quarters after showing a declining trend in person-days generation during the first year of the Narendra Modi government. But the turnaround could well be temporary,...

-Hindustan Times Bhopal/Sagar: When 39-year-old Ram Dwivedi shot himself with a rifle in Uttar Pradesh’s water-starved Banda district a few months ago, it came as a shock even to local residents in the drought-ravaged Bundelkhand region. In the past few years, most people who committed suicide in the area were either tenants or small-time farmers. But despite having 20 acres of land, Dwivedi couldn’t generate enough income to sustain his six-member family. Hit...