-The Business Standard A delayed monsoon and abundant cotton in the international market could spell trouble in the state's suicide zone Yavatmal (Maharashtra): As the skies stayed clear till the second week of June, Ramesh Gulabhrao Digde's mood darkened. His two acres were ploughed at great expense, the seeds were purchased, and a sack of fertilisers lay in a corner of his thatch-roofed hut in Parsodi village in western Maharashtra's Yavatmal...

Eighty labourers, both men and women, are at work at Thiruvanduthurai village in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, about 325 km south of Chennai. They are digging a pond - about an acre wide and six feet deep - funded under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, or MGNREGS. Outside the work perimeter, two middle aged men look on, worried. P. Murugan and K. Govindaraj are farmers from the...

High cotton prices spun out enough problems for India’s $62 billion textiles industry, but weaved gains for growers and traders in 2010. Amid pulls and pressures from the conflicting interests, a ministers’ group under the guidance of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee kept reviewing the price and crop situation, with excessive winter rains playing spoilsport. The textiles industry pulled out all stops to lobby with the textiles, commerce and finance ministries seeking a...

A large number of cotton farmers from across Gujarat are expected to come to Rajkot on Friday to protest against the central government's cotton export policy. Maha Gujarat Agricotton Producer Company Limited (MGAPCL), a co-operative cotton marketing firm owned by farmers, has organised a farmers' gathering at Rajkot for protesting the government's stand on cotton export. This comes in the wake of the central government's decision to defer the commencement of cotton...

The decision to defer cotton export registration by one month – from October 1 to November 1 – may help the textile companies in the short term because of sufficient availability, but there are concerns on how long that would last. Arrivals of cotton are uncertain across India with farmers apprehensive about the yield due to inclement weather. The early varieties of cotton from Punjab and Haryana have also been affected...