-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Coinciding with the anniversary of India’s first War of Independence on May 10, 1857, farmers from across the country will submit signed representations to district magistrates across India, demanding that the Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Chairman take up two private members’ bills, one each for putting an end to farm indebtedness, and for guaranteeing remunerative minimum support prices for all agricultural products. Also...

-Livemint.com For the first time during the tenure of the present government, overall inflation of food articles is negative, implying a decline in prices Last week the India Meteorological Department (IMD) presented its first forecast for the monsoon this year. The forecast at 97% of the long period average (LPA) suggested yet a third year of normal monsoon rains, following 2016 and 2017. This should have ideally brought cheer to farmers struggling...

-The Indian Express The main problem for farmers today is not production or having sufficient crop to sell. Instead, it has to do with prices that they are getting for their produce. The Met Department has forecast a third-in-a-row “normal” south-west monsoon this year, thanks to the very low probability of an El Nino event — the abnormal warming of the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean waters, which is known to adversely impact...

-The Indian Express Raising agricultural exports requires the government to unburden policy of consumer bias. A balance should be struck between meeting the needs of food-insecure consumers and income-insecure farmers. The Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh, recently tweeted about the government’s resolve to increase the value of the country’s agricultural exports to $100 billion by 2022-23. The Dalwai Committee Report on doubling farmers’ incomes also talked of a similar target. It said,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The national rural job scheme is set to witness the lowest wage revision since the project was launched. The Union finance ministry is learnt to have rejected a proposal to change the formula for revising the wage rate for 2018-19 under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for 2018-19. The rates in 10 states, including Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, are expected to remain unchanged,...