-The Hindu   Faced with strong protests from farmers and a demand from the Maharashtra government, the Centre on Tuesday announced the lifting of the ban on export of onions with immediate effect. The decision was taken by the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Food headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. “Ban on onion export has been lifted,'' Union Minister for Science and Technology Vilasrao Deshmukh told journalists after the meeting. Union Agriculture...

Farmers will not have to cough up any tax upfront on the compensation money they receive for their land acquired by the government. The rural development ministry has clarified after complaints that in absence of clear rules the harshest provisions were being imposed. "We have issued orders that all compensation money for agricultural land acquisitions in both urban and rural areas should be made without any deductions," said an official in...

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on Wednesday introduced the politically crucial land acquisition Bill in the Lok Sabha, less than two months after the ministry of rural development began drafting it. The National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011, aims to address rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) by providing safeguards for both landowners and livelihood losers while clearly defining the “public purpose” for which land can be acquired...

About 30,000 farmers in Maharashtra are feeling cheated. The soybean seeds they had purchased from the state seed corporation, Mahabeej, failed to germinate this season. About 40,000 hectares (ha) of farms in seven districts have been affected. Mahabeej has 45 per cent share in the soy seed business in the state. The blame game Government officials and the state agriculture department blame the farmers for the crop failure. M T Gondeswar, agriculture...

After Mansa, now the farmers in Bathinda and Faridkot districts are up in arms against the state government over the land acquisition issue. Though their land was acquired by the state government many years back, the state government may face renewed agitation from farmers, who think the land was `misused` and sold off to colonizers. Two agitations have already been witnessed in Bathinda and Faridkot in the last couple of weeks...