-The Indian Express A good, even if not record, wheat crop along with improved prices brings cheer after two not-so-good years. Dewas (Madhya Pradesh): Manohar Singh Sendhav cannot offhand recall the number of trips he has made to the Dewas mandi or to the shining steel silo at Durgapur, some 10 km away. Undaunted by the searing noon heat, this farmer from Chandakhedi village in Dewas district’s Sonkatch taluka watches his tractor driver...

-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...

-TheWire.in Community managed rice banks have replaced defunct government managed rice banks in several areas of Patna district in Bihar. A few years ago, Parbhawati Devi, Bichiya Devi and Meena Devi were landless farm laborers, fully at the mercy of landed farmers for their survival. But things have changed since then. Today, hundreds of women in dozens of villages in Patna district of Bihar, mostly from the marginalised Mahadalit community, have turned...

-Livemint.com Mint’s rural distress index is below its median value, but it conceals varying distress levels across states Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s announcement of farm loan waiver has given credence to similar demands from across the country. Those making these demands include political parties, protesting farmers and even the judiciary. An earlier Plainfacts column had pointed out how farm loan waivers can be counter-productive in the long run, a fact...

-The Economic Times MUMBAI: Bucking the trend of farm loan waivers set in motion by Uttar Pradesh, the Maharashtra government has decided a better option would be to give subsidies or grants to farmers for installing infra facilities at their farms to boost efficiency by easing input costs. “We are currently working on a policy whereby it would give grants or subsidies to farmers for say laying a network of pipelines for...