-The Times of India NEW DELHI:To achieve the country's population control target faster, the government has decided to accelerate family planning measures by identifying 146 districts where the total fertility rate (TFR, the number of children born per woman) is more than three and which add up to 28% of the population. The health ministry is set to roll out "Mission Parivar Vikas" in these districts to improve access to family planning...

-Livemint.com Not only better integration of farmers with markets, but also large investments in agriculture are the need of the hour The deaths of five farmers in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur district has brought the crisis in agriculture centre stage. While the latest incident may have got media coverage, the fact is that the crisis has been in the making for some time. It intensified in the last one year but signs of...

-Livemint.com The earnings of an average farm household in Madhya Pradesh remains among the lowest India, although farmers have gained from rapid agricultural Growth Mumbai: Protests by farmers across India amid bumper harvests have surprised many. The biggest source of surprise has been one of the hotspots of the protests, Madhya Pradesh (MP), a state that has posted record agricultural Growth over the past several years. A Mint analysis shows that although farmers...

-The Hindu Economist suggests implementation of a radical form of and distribution and ‘low external input sustainable agriculture’ system Mumbai: Economist and former member of Maharashtra State Planning Board H.M. Desarda, on Tuesday termed the recently announced farm loan waiver by the State government as a necessary but not sufficient condition to deal with the problems related to agriculture. Prof. Desarda linked today’s problems in agriculture to ecology and traced their origins to...

-Livemint.com Behind the rising tide of farmers’ protests lie several structural weaknesses facing the farm economy In a year when farm Growth has crossed the 4% mark and official statistics show a record increase in production, one would have expected farmers to celebrate. Instead, farmers in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are out on the streets protesting, and in some cases, facing bullets from the local police. What explains this...