-The Telegraph Sikar (Rajasthan): A 13-day agitation by Rajasthan's farmers, joined by about 100 disc jockeys with sound systems blaring, has forced the Vasundhara Raje government to agree to loan waivers up to Rs 50,000 and payment of the full minimum support price. Some 15,000 farmers had gathered at a mandi in Sikar town, 115km from Jaipur, on September 1 and by the time the government buckled on September 13 night, their...

-The Hindu Over the years we have lost over a lakh varieties of native rice. One district in Odisha is rediscovering some of them It is a balmy winter morning when I meet Kamli Bataraa, an ebullient Adivasi farmer, at her home in Belugan, in southern Odisha’s Koraput district. There is a hum across the village from the threshing of just-harvested paddy. When I ask Kamli about the rice varieties she grows,...

-The Indian Express In zones of prosperity, agriculture faces crisis, jobs are few, social aspirations don’t match economic realities After Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, farmers from Rajasthan came out on the streets demanding loan waiver and implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report. Protesting against government policies and demanding their share in the country’s development, which they argue have been denied to them, the farmers have shown unity across caste and class lines....

-Scroll.in In Delhi’s largest industrial area, many are still struggling to find work. “If 99% of the demonetised currency has returned [to the banking system], then why haven’t the jobs that demonetisation took away from us come back too?” asked Bajrang Yadav, 45, standing in a waterlogged lane outside his home in a slum cluster in West Delhi’s Mayapuri area last Sunday. Yadav was referring to the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report...

-The Hindu The case pertains to clearance given for diversion of forest land at Saranda Forest in Jharkhand’s Singhbhum District to a mining company in violation of Forest (Conservation) Act in 2012. The Central Bureau of Investigation on September 9 conducted searches at the Chennai premises of former Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan in connection with alleged irregularities in the approval to a proposal for leasing of 56 hectare forest land to...