-The Times of India KOZHIKODE: Farmer Sanmathy Raj was walking to his field last week when he stopped short. Dead earthworms covered the ground. “I couldn’t walk without stepping on them,” he said. It’s normal for earthworms to creep out of the soil after rains, but Kolavayal, Raj’s village in Kerala’s Wayanad district, has been dry since flood waters receded. Baffling as the scene was, mass earthworm deaths have also been reported...

-National Herald Talking about farmers’ issues, P Sainath said, “It is not just an agrarian crisis, it is now a national crisis. The Modi govt has been engaged in fooling the nation. They are telling lies shamelessly” The founder editor of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), the former Rural Affairs editor of The Hindu and author of the much acclaimed book ‘Everybody loves a Good Drought’, P Sainath, has recorded rural...

-The Hindu Flags risks in MUDRA, Kisan credit card loans in his report to MPs’ panel New Delhi: Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has cautioned that the next crisis in India’s banking sector could come from loans given to the unorganised micro and small businesses, called MUDRA loans, and credit extended through the Kisan credit card. MUDRA loans are offered under the Prime Minister Mudra Yojana or PMMY, launched in 2015 by the...

-Down to Earth Although the average farm income per month saw a rise in the last four years, it is still not enough to help farmers cope with the current agrarian crisis A latest report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), a government agency, again, shows the vulnerability of Indian agriculture households.   The NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS) shows that average agriculture household income was...

-Livemint.com Rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha on how MGNREGS has evolved since 2006 to result in income, acreage, water tables, productivity and fodder availability Agrarian distress and rural distress are terms used interchangeably, but the rural economy today is very different from what it was many years ago, given the diversification of rural incomes and hence incorrect to think one means the other, says Amarjeet Sinha, secretary, ministry of rural development. In...