-Outlook UPA’s populist trumpcard of 2008—the farm loan waiver—has fallen short of its intended target, as a CAG audit throws up The Scheme     2008 Union finance minister P. Chidambaram announces farmer debt waiver and relief scheme in budget; PM Manmohan Singh writes to beneficiaries “seeking their support”     Rs 52,275 cr Total money that was disbursed to eligible farmers across the nation as part of loan waiver scheme     Rs 50,000 The loan...

-Frontline Maharashtra’s sugarcane farmers are a worried lot as the State government backs out from the sugar pricing process.  Sangli & Kolhapur: KOLHAPUR and Sangli districts in Maharashtra form the heartland of Indian sugar industry. This time of year is generally the busiest, with itinerant labourers cutting sugarcane and loading it on to tractors that roar off to the more than 20 sugar factories in the two districts. In November and December,...

-The Times of India PUNE: The Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) continued its agitation for a higher price for sugarcane crop for the second consecutive day in western Maharashtra. The protesters resorted to stone pelting and roadblocks and brought state transport to a halt in he region. While chief minister Prithviraj Chavan held inconclusive discussions with Raghunath Patil, the leader of Shetkari Sanghatana, another farmers' organisation, SSS president and Hatkanangle MP Raju Shetty...

-The Times of India PUNE: Two farmers were killed, one of them in police firing, while three policemen were injured and an unspecified number of vehicles were either damaged or burnt after an agitation by sugarcane farmers for higher prices for their crop turned violent in western Maharashtra on Monday. Chandrakant Nalawade, a small farmer from Vasagade village in Sangli, was killed when police opened fire to control the agitating farmers after...

-IANS Kolhapur (Maharashtra): More than 500 new cases of jaundice have been reported from the textile town of Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur district in the last four days and the disease has killed at least 12 people in the last one month, officials said on Monday. Kolhapur health department suspect that the consumption of contaminated water of Panchganga river by the people is the cause behind the recent rise in cases of jaundice...