-Scroll.in With reports of abandoned cows destroying crops, the state’s cow protection panel has proposed penalties on owners who set them free. The Bharatiya Janata Party is scrambling to contain the fallout of its efforts to prevent the slaughter of cows, which have distorted rural economies in unforeseen ways. To deal with one unexpected consequence, a Madhya Pradesh government panel has now recommended penalties for farmers who abandon their cattle. This highlights...

-Livemint.com Political analysts feel there is a sense of dissatisfaction in Uttar Pradesh on demonetisation, though the political dominance of the BJP continues Baghpat, Shamli and Sardhana (Uttar Pradesh): Ved Pal, a 35-year-old farmer from the village of Bodda in Baghpat district, thinks demonetisation was the right thing to do even if its immediate aftermath was painful. “Any new work undertaken by any individual or government will always face problems; so demonetisation...

-Scroll.in The state’s expenditure on agriculture and irrigation has fallen since 2013-’14. In the run-up to the Gujarat assembly elections, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on October 16 announced that his government would offer interest free-loans to farmers who borrow up to Rs 3 lakh and pay the amount back on time. Many Opposition politics criticised this as a populist measure, aimed at garnering votes for Rupani’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Reducing the interest...

-BoomLive.in/ Factchecker.in Crime rate for atrocities against scheduled castes (SCs) in Gujarat was 32.5% in 2016, above the national average of 20.4%, according to government data. “Gujarat is among states that witness minimum Dalit atrocities,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah said on September 10, 2017, while addressing a youth town hall meeting in Ahmedabad. Shah is wrong, as the crime rate for atrocities against scheduled castes (SCs) in Gujarat was 32.5%...

-Livemint.com For Narendra Modi, the protests involving hundreds of thousands of farmers highlight his struggle to deliver on the promises that swept him to power New Delhi: Anger over falling farm incomes has spilled onto streets across a swathe of India’s largest states as farmers struggle with food price deflation and a breakdown of the informal agriculture economy. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi—already grappling with a sharp economic slowdown and looming job cuts...