-The Hindu Business Line Farmers are wrongly blamed for high power consumption. They need incentives for growing appropriate crops Agitations and loan waivers have brought the economics of agriculture in focus. Much of the discussion is about minimum support price, farmers’ net incomes and debt repayment capacities. However, the inputs side of the issue, especially the role and sustainability of subsidised inputs, also need equal attention if agriculture distress is to be...
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Powering agriculture via solar feeders -Ashwin Gambhir & Shantanu Dixit
-The Hindu Business Line They not only provide a reliable supply of electricity, but will also help reduce the subsidy outgo of States Two-thirds of the total irrigated area in India uses groundwater pumping, powered by more than two crore electric and 75 lakh diesel pumps. Access to groundwater depends on reliable and affordable electricity supply. This is an important issue as it concerns livelihoods of the rural poor and food security...
More »High-cost farming is degrading quality of soil, driving small farmers to ruin -Arjun Sharma
-Firstpost.com Chandigarh: With the planting of the new paddy crop underway in Punjab, Balour Singh of Sangrur district's Channa village is worried about the hourly fee of Rs 150 he needs to pay his neighbour for supplying water to his fields. Being a marginal farmer, Singh doesn't own a borewell and has to depend on others for water, which is something his paddy crop needs in plenty. But water isn't Balour Singh's...
More »Rising petrol prices: What Narendra Modi said before 2014 and his govt did in 4 years -Prabhash K Dutta
-IndiaToday.in Rising prices including those of petrol and diesel were among the reasons that brought down the UPA government of Manmohan Singh, whom the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had described as a "Sardar (chief), who is not asardar (effective)". In May 2012, the UPA government had approved the steepest ever hike in petrol prices across the country. The petrol prices suddenly went up by Rs 7.54 per litre. Petrol price...
More »Union budget shows "no concern" for hunger, malnutrition, rural distress, reduces maternal benefit allocation
-Counterview.net Calling the 2018-19 Union budget "highly disappointing", the top advocacy group, Right to Food Campaign (RFC), in a comprehensive analysis, has said, it has "miserably failed to respond to the present situation of rural distress and mass unemployment", adding, "Despite a spate of starvation deaths in different parts of the country, the budget makes no mention of hunger or malnutrition." Thus, RFC says, "There was some hope that the budget would...
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