-The Indian Express Total foodgrain production in 2015-16 is expected at 253.16 million tonnes (mt), according to the Agriculture Ministry’s second advance estimates.  India’s agricultural output hasn’t taken as much a hit from back-to-back droughts this time round as with previous monsoon failure episodes. Total foodgrain production in 2015-16 is expected at 253.16 million tonnes (mt), according to the Agriculture Ministry’s second advance estimates. This is only 4.5 per cent below the...

-PTI He said this platform will enable the farmers, using a mobile phone, to sell their produce anywhere in the country. SEHORE (MP): A digital platform for enabling farmers to sell their produce at a better rate anywhere in the country will be launched on April 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in Sehore on Thursday as he resolved to ensure doubling of the farmers’ income by 2022. Mr. Modi, who unveiled guidelines...

-The Hindu Business Line It has worked as a rural safety net. But the Centre has other budgetary priorities A decade after the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme came into force, the NDA government has come around to accepting its usefulness — and that, in a difficult agriculture year. Last February, the Prime Minister disparaged the programme for merely digging pits. But only a few days ago, the finance minister...

-Economic and Political Weekly Agriculture cannot be revived without a different approach to water, soil, crops and research. For the second year in succession, rainfall in the monsoon season has been less than normal. As many as 302 out of the 640 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit and the impact of the drought is the severest in nine major states of south, central and east India. It is striking...

-Business Standard Also for other programme impacting the non-urban economy, in the wake of two years of partial drought The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) seems likely to get its highest budgetary allocation since its launch a decade before. This allocation for 2016-17 could cross the previous highs of Rs 40,100 crore in the 2010-11 Budget and Rs 40,000 crore in 2011-12, by then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. Actual spending...