-The Indian Express What is disturbing is that in the middle of the current crisis some are now calling for a massive downsizing of the PDS and a shift to cash transfers in place of foodgrains. The Public Distribution System has played an important role in providing relief to people in the aftermath of the national lockdown. With COVID-19 cases increasing and the economy continuing to be in a downturn, some corrective...

-The Hindu Business Line While farms have managed to woo back labourers, it is still a trickle for industries Forty-two-year-old Tanmoy, who worked in a plant on the outskirts of Siliguri and had lost his job during the lockdown, is happy that he decided to heed his friend Hari Santhal and come to Punjab. “I was sitting idle and wanted to earn for my family. Since I had worked in farms earlier, I...

-The Hindu Flooding hits OIL well blowout capping operation, AIR station in Dibrugarh inundated Guwahati: A landslip, induced by heavy rainfall, killed a minor in Arunachal Pradesh capital Itanagar on Thursday while a woman drowned in twin city Naharlagun. Another person drowned in Assam’s Dhemaji district as the death toll in floods and landslips since mid-May rose to 36. Officials in Itanagar said the body of the minor was retrieved from under the...

-The Indian Express That’s the actual liquidity pumped into rural areas by government post lockdown – through grain procurement, PM-Kisan and MGNREGA wages. There are many parallels one can draw between the novel coronavirus-induced lockdown (gharbandi) and demonetisation (notebandi), in terms of their impact on India’s farm economy. Both resulted in the same thing – demand destruction – albeit through different routes. Notebandi caused a haemorrhaging of liquidity from the predominantly cash-based farm...

-The Hindu Business Line While a cross section of the industry says the chemical has reported no toxic effect so far, planters say they’ve no other option Bengaluru: At a time when the Indian farmers are increasingly relying on weedicides to protect their crop yields and keep costs under control, Bayer’s $10.9-billion settlement with the Roundup plaintiffs in the United States could possibly see the demand for ban on glyphosate gain momentum...