-The Hindu What happened? On June 1, farmers in Maharashtra went on strike for the first time ever. Their agitation saw violence, and angry farmers spilling milk and throwing vegetables on the road; at one point the strike expanded into a bandh call, where agitators threatened to stop supply to urban markets. This apparently leaderless agitation grabbed the attention of both the government and the urban population, quite ignorant of conditions in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today directly linked the slowdown in growth to demonetisation, pointed out that private investments had almost dried up and expressed deep concern over a jobs crunch. The most authoritative Opposition voice on the economy was speaking at the Congress Working Committee meeting, five months after describing demonetisation as "organised loot and legalised plunder" and warning that growth would be severely affected. "India's GDP numbers...

-Livemint.com At some 200-plus tur procurement centres in Maharashtra, where Nafed had agreed to purchase the crop till 31 May, the desperation of thousands of farmers represent all that is wrong with government intervention in the agriculture market Wardha, Hinganghat (Vidarbha): Santosh Borkute, a cotton and tur cultivator in Amla village of Wardha district in Vidarbha region, has learned from Marathi newspapers that the Narendra Modi government has completed three years in...

-Firstpost.com If one purely compare the January-March quarter GDP growth of fiscal year 2017 and fiscal year 2016, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s prediction that demonetisation will shave off 2 percentage points of India’s GDP has come true. In the January-March quarter of FY16, GDP grew by 9 percent, which has come down to 6.1 percent in the corresponding quarter this year— a near 3 percentage point difference. Even the full...

-TheWire.in Farmers are once again wondering which crop will fetch them guaranteed good returns. Nagpur: What do you grow on your farm in the coming season that will fetch you good returns? This is a question millions of peasant farmers, particularly those with small holdings and no protective irrigation, are likely to ask themselves this month, possibly with no answers. They’ll go back to what they have been growing on their fields thus far,...