-Hindustan Times For a country that is set to be ranked among the world’s top five economies over the next decade, India cannot afford to be counted as a home for impoverished farmers who are ending their lives because they do not have the money to return loans as small as Rs 10,000. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, 5,650 farmers committed suicide in India last year. Bankruptcy and...

-The Hindu Bengaluru: Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M.Venkaiah Naidu has termed the statement made by Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on farmers’ suicides in the country as “objectionable and unacceptable”, and said the mistake occurred due to "messed up data" provided by the National Crime Records Bureau. In a reply to a question at a press conference in Bengaluru on Saturday, Mr. Naidu said, “the statement as reported is objectionable and...

-Down to Earth After two budgets and Rs 5,300 crore in funding, the Centre's micro irrigation project that promises water to every farmland is not even close to a roll-out The news of deficit monsoons this year has once again left the Centre worried. A concerned prime minister chaired a high-level meeting on June 8 where he emphasised the need to quickly augment the irrigation capacity of the country. But he conveniently...

-IPS News NIYAMGIRI: As the rhythmic thumping of dancing feet reaches a crescendo, the women offer a song to their forest god for a bountiful harvest. Then, with earthen pots on their heads and their spiritual creatures – a pigeon and a hen – in tow, they proceed in single file on a long march away from their village of Kadaraguma, located on the Niyamgiri mountain range in the Rayagada District of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is likely to work out the contours of the reworked land acquisition bill by next week amid indications that it may be purged of all the politically unpopular provisions. It is learnt that the Modi government may allow states to draft their own acquisition laws with the frame of reference being the central law which would only have "pro-people" measures; a tack aimed at...