-Livemint.com Unlike the dhoti-clad, topi-wearing quintessential ‘kisan’, the new Indian farmer is vocal and tech-savvy New Delhi: In the winter of 1988 when the feisty farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, laid siege to Delhi with thousands of cultivators and their cattle literally creating a mess of the boat club lawns, agriculture’s share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 30%. About three decades later, the farm sector’s share in...

-The Hindu Strengthening the repayment capacity of farmers by improving and stabilising their income is the only way to keep them out of distress Indian agriculture is characterised by low scale and low productivity. About 85% of the operational landholdings in the country are below 5 acres and 67% farm households survive on an average landholding of one acre. More than half of the area under cultivation does not have access to...

-The Hindu Business Line RBI Deputy Governor says such loans support economic activity, generate income & surplus Mumbai: Given the overexposure of the banking system to large corporates and the consequences thereof in the last few years, Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor SS Mundra said lending to priority sector is good business for all the right and justifiable reasons. “The excessive lending to corporate sector was the outcome of what I call...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Transactions through debit and credit cards rose by merely seven per cent post demonetisation, as against a surge of over 23 per cent in overall digital transactions, top government officials told a parliamentary panel. Officials from various ministries gave a presentation to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on 'Demonetisation and Transformation towards Digital Economy'. The digital transactions in all modes increased by 23 per cent to 27.5 million in...

-TheWire.in The Maharashtra government’s Rs 34,000-crore farm loan waiver may not provide much relief to small and marginal farmers in Marathwada, who are caught in the debt trap of private moneylenders. Latur: Venkat Balbim Bhise, a farmer who owns three acres of land in Bisewagholi village, in Maharashtra’s Latur district, is in his early thirties. But anger bordering on fatalism is writ large over his weary face. Venkat owes almost Rs 3.5...