-The Indian Express In an article in these columns (‘A fertile mess', IE, December 11), Ashok Gulati says India has landed its fertiliser industry in a mess because of rising subsidies, lagging investment, unbalanced use of fertilisers and diversion of urea for other uses, among other things. He blames it all on administered pricing and subsidy costs, and advocates the increase of urea prices or cash transfer of the fertiliser subsidy...

-The Hans India Vijayawada: Farmers of nine villages from the 29 identified, which will be the part of capital region, are up in arms against land pooling. Their firm stand is to save around 135 varieties of crops grown in the villages. The farmers are opposing the move by the government to take their fertile lands where the horticulture and commercial crops are grown along the 18 kilometer stretch from Prakasam...

-Business Standard Farmers still struggling for access to govt schemes The 70th report on the "Situation of Agricultural Households in India", released by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) on Saturday, reveals that much is wrong with Indian farmers' economic status, despite several programmes being run by the government to raise their incomes. Over half of all farm households are heavily indebted; 26 per cent of them owe money to moneylenders who...

-Business Standard Surveys show 40% still get loans from non-institutional sources & at high rates A little over half of India's agricultural households were in debt, with 40 per cent of the dues from non-institutional lenders, during agricultural year 2012-13 (July to June), according to a official survey. This 'Situation assessment survey of agricultural households' showed 51.9 per cent of all agricultural households were indebted, with the average amount of unpaid dues being...

-Livemint.com Some 50,000 women in India died during childbirth and from pregnancy-related complications in 2013, according to estimates by United Nations agencies Melbourne/Mumbai: Sita Devi was in labour when her family paid the day's first bribe. The wife of Shivvaran Pal, a subsistence farmer whom she'd married at 15, Sita worked on their land and earned a monthly wage of Rs.1,000, about $16, cooking school lunches. By 23, she had three daughters...