-The Indian Express Mumbai: Despite MGNREGA’s rich possibilities, Kumar notes that the Maharashtra government has slashed allocations under it to Rs 800 crore in 2014-15. Even as it stares at unprecedented crop loss from back-to-back droughts followed by untimely rains/hailstorms, Maharashtra has seemingly given the short shrift to MGNREGA, which could have gone some way in mitigating the current crisis. And significantly, its potential has been least leveraged in Vidarbha, the region...

-Livemint.com Experts outline steps to tackle the woes of the rain-dependent sector, with Met dept seeing a below-normal monsoon Agriculture in India is going through one of its worst periods in recent times. On the one hand farm incomes have been dented by falling prices of crops—both of key crops like rice, wheat and cotton as well as cash crops like rubber, basmati rice, guar gum and potatoes. On the other,...

-NDTV Gholgagon, Madhya Pradesh: Twenty protestors, from Gholgagon village along the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh, have been standing in waist-deep water for the last 25 days. The soles of their feet are completely stripped of skin and are infected with fungal sores. "Our health condition is deteriorating, epidermal skin from the soles of our feet is peeling. This has made standing and walking very difficult," says 63-year-old Sakku Bai, who's been...

-Business Standard Greater adoption of cash crops combined with a collapse in the prices of agri-commodities has led farmers to the brink in major agricultural areas According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data, nearly 64 per cent of all farmer suicides in the country in 2013 took place in the four states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, raising the question: why is rural stress resulting in farmer suicides...

-PTI PALGHAR: Raising concern over changing climate scenario and lack of technical and financial resources in tribal farming community, researchers have stressed on the need to develop 'climate-smart' villages in tribal areas of Maharashtra's Palghar district. A study conducted recently in the predominantly tribal Jawhar and Mokhada talukas of the district by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi, has revealed that there is a need to develop climate smart villages...