-ANI The statistics for farmer suicides in India are as striking as they are shameful. One farmer suicide every 30 minutes in 2009, screamed a NYU School of Law report earlier this year. If one accepts that many suicides also go unreported, even this shocking statistics is perhaps an under-estimation. Why, then, would another three suicides, this time in Madhya Pradesh's Hoshangabad District, be newsworthy? For one, the suicides took place during the...
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India ready to block any move to put farm tariffs at WTO meet by Amiti Sen
India will resist any attempt by developed countries to take away the right of World Trade Organisation (WTO)-member nations to restrict Export of food items and raise import tariffs beyond existing levels. Trade ministers of WTO-member countries are meeting in Geneva on Thursday to try and identify issues that can be discussed till the US presidential elections are over next year. The meeting is also likely to take up proposals to "cherry-pick"...
More »Is paying Rs 127 a day for farm labour too much, Mr Pawar? by Raman Kirpal
What lies behind Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s note to the prime minister asking for a suspension of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA, for short) for three months a year? The obvious reason is that the big farmers’ lobby he represents is unhappy that NREGA has raised wages in rural areas and labour cannot be enticed to work for less. Under NREGA, labourers get paid at least Rs...
More »Punjab Govt. announces subsidy for potato growers
-PTI The Punjab Government on Sunday announced freight subsidy for transportation of potato crop to domestic as well as Export markets. Potato growers had on Saturday threatened to throw potatoes on the roads in Jalandhar on December 15 to protest the fall in the crop's price to as low as Rs.1 per kg and the “insensitive” attitude of the State government. Announcing a reprieve to potato growers across the State, Punjab Chief Minister...
More »FDI in retail BJP's baby, we are trying to nurse it: Pranab
-The Times of India Taking a swipe at the BJP for not backing FDI in retail, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said the government was only trying to nurse the main opposition party's "baby" when it took the decision to allow FDI in retail. Replying to a debate in the Rajya Sabha on price rise, Mukherjee read from a 2004 interview of leader of opposition Arun Jaitley in which the senior...
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