-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...

-The Hindu Men with no prior experience being employed in boats, says study Kochi (Kerala): Of all the 14 persons who were on board Carmel Matha, the fishing boat which was involved in a mid-sea collision on Sunday, no fishermen belonged to Kerala. Surprising as it may seem, the fact, however, has come as no surprise to those in the marine fisheries sector. A cursory glance at the functioning of fishing harbours of...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: If the Narendra Modi government caves in and grants a nationwide farm loan waiver, the tab could surge to a whopping Rs 3 lakh crore, dwarfing the UPA's initiative in 2008 that cost a little over Rs 52,000 crore. "We have warned that the exchequer will go bust if we grant a general amnesty on farm loans, which will cost over Rs 3 lakh crore," a senior finance...

-PTI Also says that note ban's impact could adversely affect its business The country's largest lender, the State Bank of India (SBI), has expressed apprehensions that demonetisation may continue to result in slowing down of the economy and adversely affect its business. The government had discontinued Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes from November 9, 2016, and issued new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 currency notes in exchange for the discontinued ones. The long-term...

-The Telegraph Bhopal: The turbaned, white-haired, kurta-dhoti-wearing "Tauji" figures are there too, but one outstanding feature of the current farmer agitation in Madhya Pradesh are its jeans-clad, smartphone-wielding spearheads. If the veteran "Kakkaji" Shiv Kumar Sharma is the public face of the movement, which lacks a central leadership, much of the spadework is being done by a band of young, bilingual, stats-savvy and largely apolitical agriculture graduates. Their leader Kedar Sirohi, who is...