-Mumbai Mirror The Maharashtra government’s claims about the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanman Yojana (CSMSSY), a farmers’ loan waiver scheme, have fallen flat as only around half the money – Rs 16,498 crore – has been disbursed to 39.78 lakh farmers out of the state’s 80 lakh farmers. In June 2017, the Devendra Fadnavis government had announced Rs 34,000 crore for 80 lakh farmers. However, the latest data released by the...

-Livemint.com With shrinking farm sizes and lack of accurate land records, farmers find it difficult to generate enough income to provide for their households From farm subsidies to Farm Loan Waivers, the Indian government spends crores on farmer welfare, but these efforts will be inadequate unless they can tackle an increasingly daunting barrier: lack of land. The provisional figures from the latest agriculture census reveals how land—the most critical input for agriculture—is...

-Livemint.com Loan waivers and electricity subsidies are band-aids at best; a deeper transformation is needed The past few days have neatly summed up the scale and nature of the challenges facing India’s agriculture sector. First, the provisional agriculture census 2015-16 showed that landholdings have continued their decades-long trend of fragmentation, leading to a further rise in the proportion of small and marginal farmers. Then, 30,000 farmers, who had started their march from...

-The Telegraph The 6.1 per cent hike in the MSP is expected to disburse a cumulative additional income of Rs 62,635 crore. New Delhi: The Centre has increased the minimum support price for wheat, the main rabi crop, by Rs 105 to Rs 1,840 per quintal (100kg), a day after police clashed with farmers demanding a higher support price and loan waivers. The 6.1 per cent hike in the MSP is expected to...

-The Telegraph Distressed farmers marching for 10 days ran into water cannons and tear gas on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border Distressed farmers marching for 10 days ran into water cannons and teargas on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Tuesday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the birth anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi who taught the world the power of non-violence and Lal Bahadur Shastri who immortalised the “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” slogan. The...