-The Financial Express Despite the substantial increase in agricultural credit in the past few years, a few states such as Tamil Nadu, Punjab and (pre-division) Andhra Pradesh continue to corner a large part of it, while most poor farmers in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar are still deprived of credit for purchase of basic farming inputs. This scenario has undermined the efficacy of the stepped-up farm credit in boosting agricultural productivity. And...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A parliamentary panel has voiced shock that a scholarship for underprivileged meritorious students had not been revised since the scheme was launched in 2008, leaving it at less than half of what households now spend on average on a higher secondary student. According to a survey on social consumption, households spend Rs 12,619 a year on a plus-2 student's schooling, while the yearly amount under the National Means-cum-Merit...

-TheWire.in Farmer suicides and hunger deaths plague flagship village of SP government. “Have you heard of kangaali mein aata geela? That is our situation,”says Sugha Singh as he sits outside Balwan Singh’s house along with other village men under the tree on a warm February afternoon. He is referring to an old Hindi idiom which means getting into more hardships one after another. They are mourning the death of Munni Devi, 78,...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Active policy intervention in agriculture and rigorous monitoring of farm operations from planting to harvesting in a good monsoon year helped Indian farmers increase India’s food output at a much faster pace in 2016-17 than previous peaks in production, officials said. Farm output rose 8.1% to a record of 272 million tonnes in the current crop year. This is much more than the previous significant increase in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A revamped central housing scheme promising shelter for all rural families by 2022 has no room for the landless. Dalits, Adivasis and nomadic tribes who have no land will be forced live without dignity as the Centre has discontinued assistance to landless people for purchasing land under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G), activists say. It has also dropped plans for a law to give plots to the...