-The Economic Times In a chat with ET Now, Abhijit Sen, Professor, JNU, says this is a whole sector in which there are very large cash demands for production at one or two points in time and this happens to be one. Edited excerpts * The government has hiked MSPs for rabi crop. How do you see the impact of higher MSPs for output and demand for rabi playing out? The increases are normal...

-The Hindu To prevent further damage to the economy and to relieve distress, demonetisation should be revoked immediately Without adequate preparation or thought, the monetary authorities and the government have taken a drastic step declaring as worthless over 86 per cent by value of the currency notes in circulation with the public. A prior large increase of lower denomination notes should have been ensured through banks and ATMs, so that overall money...

-The Financial Express There is by now substantial agreement amongst analysts that a strategy for dal production which ensures supplies and a reasonable degree of self-reliance is sorely needed, and the country cannot go from one crisis to another without a well-worked-out policy. However, the discussion is flawed on its assessments of what governments can and cannot do and on the lack of a short and medium strategy to enhance production....

-The Indian Express After cotton last year, the BJP state government faces a fresh challenge ahead of late-2017 elections. Rajkot: GROUNDNUT FARMERS last week forced a suspension of auctions at the agriculture produce market committee (APMC) mandi in Amreli to protest against tumbling prices of Gujarat’s second biggest cash crop after cotton. The new groundnut-in-shell crop is fetching around Rs 3,500 per quintal, well below the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs...

-The Hindu Business Line This kharif, with its high pulses output, provides an opportunity to push procurement, processing — and lift curbs on exports Pulses have been in the news over the last one year and for all the wrong reasons. Sharply lower harvests two years in a row (2014-15 and 2015-16) due to a below-normal southwest monsoon in the kharif season and unseasonal rains during the rabi harvest combined with rising...