-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India's domestic compulsions and the danger of breaching the subsidy cap for wheat and rice forced the government to thwart attempts by other World Trade Organization members to push through a new set of customs rules without addressing its concerns. The subsidy data, due to be released by the government over the next few weeks, will reveal that the subsidy on rice was over 9% of...

-Rediff.com 'Suicide rates among Indian farmers were a chilling 47 per cent higher than they were for the rest of the population in 2011. In some of the states worst hit by the agrarian crisis, they were well over 100 per cent higher. In Maharashtra, farmers were killing themselves at a rate that was 162 per cent higher than that for any other Indians excluding farmers. A farmer in this state...

-PSainath.org At least ten farmers have killed themselves every day, on average, for a straight ten years in the rich state of Maharashtra. Nation-wide the farm suicides total nears the 300,000-mark, as the data of the National Crime Records Bureau show. At least 3,146 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra in 2013, the latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show. That brings the total number of farmers taking their own...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...

-Down to Earth Last year, when commerce minister of UPA government had agreed to the trade facilitation pact pushed by developed countries, it was perceived as compromising the interests of poor nations that need to stockpile foodgrains for public food programmes After weeks of speculation on whether India would sign on the dotted line, the new World Trade Organisation agreement to ease worldwide customs rules collapsed late Thursday night in Geneva. Many (including...