-The Hindu Growth of weeds controlled, less manpower needed Theni (Tamil Nadu): With distribution of subsidy for drip and sprinkler irrigation and propagation of advanced technologies, farmers having small land holdings in rain-fed areas have managed to raise crops this season and earn a decent income in Theni district. Major beneficiaries are horticulturists raising sapota, mango, lemon, banana, guava, cashew, papaya, hybrid amla, drumstick and vegetables, and floriculturists raising jasmine, rose, tuberose and...

-TheWeekendLeader.com Bhubaneswar: Sabita Sahoo, 35, a migrant labourer, works in a brick kiln unit near Balianta in Khurda district of Odisha. Severe poverty and debt, brought on by landlessness, force her family of five, including her children, to move out of their village in Bolangir district in search of suitable livelihood opportunities. Year after year, Sahoo’s top concern, as always, is about being able to earn enough in order to provide two...

-The Indian Express Poorly designed policies are largely to blame for farm distress Successive governments have transformed an unevenly prosperous rural society to one which is evenly distressed. Small and marginal farmers now feel worse off than the landless. Most suicides have taken place in the families of such farmers, especially those with no source of non-farm income. For the sense of desperation that now pervades rural India, all political parties are...

-Livemint.com/ Bloomberg Modi is facing resentment among rural households that became accustomed to large wage increases under his predecessor New Delhi: In the wheat fields stretching across northern India, farmers like Dalvir Sharma are starting to turn on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sharma, 51, voted for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last year after it promised to stem rising prices in the market. Now he’s struggling to pay back a Rs.100,000 loan...

-The New Indian Express KOCHI: Globalisation and its appetite for cheap input have badly affected fisherwomen who are already grossly underpaid when compared to men in the sector or are unpaid, a report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, published on Tuesday has observed. In the sector, with its still prevalent Old Boys’ Club behaviour, globalisation benefited some people from new emerging work and business opportunities, but...