-The Times of India Continuing suicides and intermittent protests by farmers across the country prompted the Supreme Court on Thursday to ask why the much publicised Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMBFY) had not provided relief to the hapless farmers. While the government said that it is the first year and they are ironing out the problems, a look at the details of this first year's implementation throws up more systemic...

-The Indian Express As many as 11,46,768 farmers from Vidarbha and 10,83,932 from Marathwada will have their loans waived. Western Maharashtra, which is economically most prosperous, has a relatively lower number of beneficiaries, with 7,391,48 farmers making it to the list. Mumbai: With the government announcing that over 35.11 lakh farmers across Maharashtra WHO have outstanding individual loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh will benefit from its loan waiver decision, more...

-VillageSquare.in Given the complex and varied situations in rural India, the results of the direct benefit transfer method are so far mixed at best and debilitating at worst, as seen in the subsidies for farm equipment and fertilizers Direct benefit transfer (DBT), a system through which government programs transfer funds directly to bank accounts of beneficiaries, is hailed as a major intervention that is expected to cut a WHOle lot of misdirection...

-GovernanceNow.com The cost of maintaining our 5.3 million stray cattle comes to about Rs 30,115 core per year A lot of debate that we witness in the media on the cattle question these days suffer from the disease of speculative utopian imagination of a ‘cow-nation’ and relentless abuses for those beef-eating ‘others’.   Political debates over the question of our bovine stock has mostly been heavily polarising and mindlessly simplistic, notwithstanding exceptions like veteran...

-The Indian Express The FPC movement in Maharashtra has seen much action over the last year or so. Working under the banner of MahaFPC, the FPCs had purchased more than 25,000 MT of tur last year. Pune: After their success in government procurement, the Farmer Producers Companies (FPCs) of Maharashtra are eyeing the WHOlesale markets in other states as avenues for their produce. In the first phase MahaFPC, the consortium of...