-Livemint.com Abject poverty, high levels of debt, and crop failures among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to a study commissioned by agriculture ministry New Delhi: Abject poverty, high levels of indebtedness, crop failures and pressure to repay loans are among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to the preliminary findings of a study commissioned by the Union agriculture ministry. The broad findings of the study conducted by the Institute for...

-The Indian Express UP, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu account for 36% of total agri-lending in FY17 till December New Delhi: AMID EARLY signs of farmers in Maharashtra starting to default on their farm loans in anticipation of a waiver on the lines of the one announced in Uttar Pradesh, what is adding to the worries of banks and other lending institutions is that the four states where such waivers are under discussion...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Congress today alleged that the Narendra Modi government was testing the waters on bringing agricultural income within the tax ambit and declared its intention to build a movement of farmers if the idea was implemented. "This government is harassing industrialists, traders, students, political rivals... only one section of the society was left, that is farmers," Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said. "The statements coming from important people in...

-TheHoot.org Maharashtra’s farm daily Agrowon offered a counter to the SBI chief, the RBI governor, and English newspapers critical of the UP farm loan waiver. The Marathi agriculture daily Agrowon has criticized both the RBI governor Urjit Patel and State Bank of India’s Arundhati Bhattacharya  who have objected to the farm  loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh and similar demands elsewhere. The paper’s line is quite different from that of the mainstream English...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel has sounded the alarm on state governments waiving farm loans and has called for a consensus on eschewing them to avoid damaging the national balance sheet. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Aditya Nath recently announced a Rs 36,000-crore farm loan waiver, which could trigger copycat decisions by the Punjab and Maharashtra governments. "It undermines honest credit culture, it impacts credit...