-The Hindu Business Line Oil companies gear up to meet LPG demand after Ujjwala expansion New Delhi: The annual average demand for LPG cylinder refills is now three under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) according to IndianOil Chairman, Sanjiv Singh. “The average number of LPG refills in every household across the country was close to seven plus before the Ujjwala scheme was launched. This has now tapered to seven and the...

-Livemint.com With barely a few months to go for 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the question across political party lines is: what can really be done now, and quickly? New Delhi: When residents gather around the fire on foggy winter evenings in Rampura, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, the conversation often veers toward the declining fortunes in agriculture. Take 27-year-old Pushpendra Singh, who completed his master’s degree in commerce in 2016,...

-The Telegraph In the long term, the only real solution to rural distress is to shift labour to more productive segments of the economy It has turned into an open season for farm loan waivers. Less than a week after assuming office, Congress governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have announced the waiver of crop Loans up to two lakh rupees per farmer. The Congress president, Rahul Gandhi, has thrown down...

-Livemint.com Declining income, shrinking farmlands, rise in number of dependents on existing holdings add to farm woes Bengaluru: Since 2000, Karnataka has put nearly 200,000 hectares of farmland to non-agricultural use, including for industrial, residential and infrastructure projects. Besides shrinking farmlands, the number of dependents on existing land holdings have also increased considering little employment opportunities elsewhere. From 1.312 million hectares in 2000-01 (cumulative), the total land put to non-agricultural use has risen...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Joining the debate on farm loan waivers, government think-tank Niti Aayog on Wednesday said such a move helps only a fraction of farmers and is no solution to mitigate agrarian distress. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has been pressing the government on the issue, saying he will not let Prime Minister Narendra Modi sleep until a loan waiver is given to all farmers. "Farm loan waiver is not a solution...