-The Telegraph The Narendra Modi government's record in tacitly supporting the actions of a bunch of vigilante thugs who have been terrorizing the country, especially the Muslims and the Dalits, in the guise of gau rakshaks, or opponents of love jihad, or 'nationalists', has been so outrageous that it has grabbed all the critical attention. In the process, the government's abysmal failures in other spheres have gone virtually unnoticed. One such...

-Livemint.com The earnings of an average farm household in Madhya Pradesh remains among the lowest India, although farmers have gained from rapid agricultural growth Mumbai: Protests by farmers across India amid bumper harvests have surprised many. The biggest source of surprise has been one of the hotspots of the protests, Madhya Pradesh (MP), a state that has posted record agricultural growth over the past several years. A Mint analysis shows that although farmers...

-Firstpost.com After Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh has now been rocked by farmer unrest. At least six farmers were killed and eight others were critically injured on Tuesday when the police resorted to firing to subdue the protesting farmers in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh. In both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the farmers’ demands are almost similar: they want complete farm loan waiver as a short-term palliative and secondly, institutionalised mechanism for getting better prices...

-ENS Economic Bureau 'Such waiver would prove counter-productive for the RBI’s measures to clean up bank balance sheets' Mumbai: With Maharashtra also joining the farm loan waiver bandwagon, various state governments are expected to waive off $40 billion, or Rs 2,57,000 crore, of farmers’ loans in the run-up to the 2019 general elections in the country, a global banking group has said. Farm loan waivers will amount to 2 per cent of...

-Business Standard GVA growth at 2-year low of 5.6%; Farming only bright spot India’s economic growth fell to 6.1 per cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016-17 (FY17), primarily because of demonetisation adversely affecting economic activity. This was at least a four-quarter low. The sectors worst affected were construction and financial services. Without indirect taxes, growth figures would be more dismal. Gross value added (GVA), the difference between gross domestic product...