-The Times of India   Rampant corruption in government-run welfare schemes, and not just indebtedness, was one of the major reasons behind farmers in Madhya Pradesh killing themselves, a high-level committee appointed by the state human rights commission has reported. After probing the more than 4000 farmer suicides in the state during the last few years, the two member committee comprising renowned agriculture expert G S Kaushal and retired sugar cane commissioner...

Two of the three Bengal agencies tasked with procuring paddy directly from farmers have failed to do so till now because of lack of funds, a revelation that blunts the state government’s attempt to blame the Centre. Paddy procurement is one of the purported issues over which the Congress and the Trinamul Congress have been calling each other names. The state government had pointed fingers at the Centre-run Food Corporation of...

Farmers in Maharashtra flock to 
a new breed of aggressive leaders Its name in Marathi means edge of the hill, but Dongarkada has no hill or mountain in its vicinity. What the village in Maharashtra's Hingoli district has is a cooperative sugar factory controlled by Congress leader Ashok Chavan. Though the Adarsh Housing Society scam rocked the state and forced him to resign as chief minister, the village remains loyal to...

The Union government has cleared an external loan to finance part of the programme launched by the Ministry of Rural Development in left wing extremism-affected villages. The clearance is for a loan of $500 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to speed up construction of rural roads. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has, in a letter, urged Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to issue directions for negotiating and early signing...

The frequency of incidents of farmers committing suicides is “unimaginable” in West Bengal, State Left Front chairman Biman Bose said here on Friday.  “The government had fixed a target of 20 lakh metric tonnes for procurement of paddy from peasants in the State. According to reports, it has only collected 2 lakh metric tonnes so far,” Mr. Bose, who is also the State secretary of the CPI(M), told journalists.  Stating that paddy...