-The Hindu Business Line In an effort to reintroduce the bill seeking amendments in the Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development and Regulation) Act, the Maharashtra government has started discussions with stakeholders, including farmers’ leaders, traders and mathadi workers (head loaders). In the first meeting recently conducted by State Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil, farmers’ leaders and traders reached an agreement on scrapping cess on the produce brought and traded in Agriculture Produce Market Committee...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation, coupled with daily limits on cash transactions and fear of being tracked by revenue authorities post the Goods and Services Tax regime, have made traders less inclined to purchasing and stocking up produce during the harvest season. The defining feature of Indian agriculture in the last five years — much of it under the Narendra Modi government’s tenure — has been low prices for farm produce. The accompanying...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...

  In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...

-BusinessToday.in The analysis report showed individuals from vulnerable groups, namely women, uneducated, wage labourers, agricultural labourers and small traders, being the worst hit by job losses in 2018. Job scenario turned bleak in the past year, as almost 11 million Indians lost their jobs during 2018, a report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said. The analysis report showed individuals belonging to vulnerable groups being the worst hit by job...