-The Financial Express How can the cotton and soybean farmers of Vidarbha and Marathwada supplement their incomes so they can get out of the trap of debt and self-engineered death? That was the theme of Union minister Nitin Gadkari’s ninth edition, four-day agricultural exhibition at Nagpur, called Agrovision, to which I was invited.  A promising beginning has been made. In October last year, the National Dairy Development Board commenced operations. It...

-Firstpost.com The bungling over the Maharashtra government's farm loan waiver scheme claimed its first victim on Monday, according to exclusive information with Firstpost. VK Gautam, Principal Secretary (Information Technology) has been sent on leave after criticism over the implementation of the scheme. Technical errors have plagued the scheme since its roll out, with farmers suffering because of glitches ranging from duplication of names in lists to incorrect Aadhaar details. VK Gautam applied for 15-day...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) said on Monday that Aadhaar data is completely safe and secure. Aadhaar number, it said, is not a secret number and it is to be shared with authorised agencies if one wishes to avail a certain service or benefit of government welfare schemes or other services. "Aadhaar data is fully safe and secure and there has been no data leak or breach at...

How many happy seeder machines are currently available in Haryana and Punjab? Against the backdrop of a recent advisory issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in response to the dense smog that engulfed the entire NCR since October this year, the above question seems pertinent. The happy seeder machine is considered as a magic bullet  to curb the menace of stubble burning during the wheat-paddy cropping cycle,...

-The Hindu We need to revisit the credit policy with a focus on the outreach of banks and financial inclusion Since Independence, one of the primary objectives of India’s agricultural policy has been to improve farmers’ access to institutional credit and reduce their dependence on informal credit. As informal sources of credit are mostly usurious, the government has improved the flow of adequate credit through the nationalisation of commercial banks, and the...