-The Hindu Write-offs encourage defaulters, affect credit culture, Union Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala tells Lok Sabha. On a day when the BJP’s loss in three State elections was partly attributed to rural distress and the Congress’s promise to waive farm loans, the government told the Lok Sabha that it was not considering any loan waiver scheme as it would affect the credit culture, incentivise defaulters, create a moral hazard...

Just a few days ahead of the Kisan Mukti March in Delhi NCR, the provisional results of the Agriculture Census 2015-16 became available in the public domain. The report, among other things, highlights the long-term problems affecting Indian agriculture including fragmentation of land holdings (particularly the marginal and small ones) and shrinking average size of farm land. The provisional results of the latest Agriculture Census reveal that at the national level...

-The Hindu Study raises safety, efficacy concerns; call for ban of irrational formulations Of the 110 anti-TB (tuberculosis) Fixed Dose Combinations (FDCs) available in India, only 32 (less than 30%) have been approved by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), the country’s drug regulator. In the case of malaria FDCs, only eight out of 20 (40%), have been approved. These statistics, that give rise to safety and efficacy concerns, have been brought...

-The Hindu Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday questioned the Maharashtra government on the advertisements issued by the State to fill jobs under reservation granted to the Maratha community A Division Bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice MS Karnik was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations and petitions opposing and supporting the new legislation granting 16% reservation to the Marathas. Advocate Gunratan Sadavarte, appearing for one of the petitioners...

-The Hindu With farm distress becoming a major electoral issue in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Vikas Pathak visits two pockets of rural India, Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh and Jodhpur district in Rajasthan, and finds that the political instincts of the rural voter are not necessarily rooted in agriculture. A few farmers sit huddled near a statue of Sardar Patel at Balaguda village in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh pouring out...