-The Indian Express As the farm protests in Maharashtra spilled over to MP, with five people killed in police firing in Mandsaur last week, The Sunday Express looks at the economics and politics of the unrest ONE gloomy afternoon this March, a disillusioned Dhanu Dhorde Patil, 43, sat watching his television in Dongaon village, about 2 km from Puntamba in Ahmednagar district, the heart of the recent farmers’ agitation in Maharashtra....

-The Indian Express Devendra Fadnavis said, “The loan waiver, which will come into force by October 31, 2017, will be restricted to small and marginal farmers with land holdings of five acres.” Pune: In the face of spiralling protests across Maharashtra, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday announced a farm loan waiver of Rs 30,000 crore, the biggest such write-off for farmers in the state. But by afternoon, it was clear that...

-The Indian Express As the Modi government completes three years, here are three potentially game-changing steps it could now take to harness the sector’s unrealised potential Amidst the predictable tidal wave of opinion pieces to mark the Narendra Modi government’s third anniversary, one little event last week squeezed its way into the inside pages of a few newspapers. This was a call for a “farm strike” in Maharashtra from June 1,...

-Livemint.com Raju Shetty, SSS founder and MP from Hatkanangle, says Maharashtra farmers are feeling ‘let-down and betrayed’ by three years of the Modi rule Mumbai: The ‘Sangharsha Yatra’ launched by all opposition parties in Maharashtra to demand a farm loan waiver may have ended but chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is unlikely to see any let-up in the farmers’ protest across the state. What is worse for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government...

-Livemint.com While one estimate pegged Maharashtra’s tur production at 1.17 million tonnes, another forecast a record yield of 2.35 million tonnes Mumbai: Maharashtra’s economic survey of 2016-17, which came out on 17 March, pegged the state’s total tur (pigeon pea) yield at 1.17 million tonnes, based on estimates of the Pune-based agriculture commissionerate. A fortnight later, the state’s agriculture department put out revised estimates showing the March projection of tur yield...