-Newsclick.in Many farmers also brought uprooted electric meters from their Tube wells, dumped them on the premises of PVVNL and asked the officials to deposit them in the office. Lucknow: Farmers from across Western Uttar Pradesh intensified their ongoing protest by allegedly holding government officials hostage for several hours inside the Paschim Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (PVVNL) under the banner of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU). The protest is against installing electric meters...

-Newsclick.in The farmers are also demanding free electricity for irrigation and grants for borewells, tubewells, ponds and tanks, as promised by BJP during the last Assembly election. Lucknow: Sugarcane farmers of Kaptanganj sugar mill, in Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and surrounding villages have been protesting outside the tehsil under the banner of multiple unions demanding payment of around Rs 44 crore due for the ongoing crushing season for almost two...

-Down to Earth Police stop farmers from using Tube wells to irrigate their fields   India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, appears headed for a drought. Seventy-two of its 75 districts (96 per cent) recorded ‘below normal’ rainfall till July 20, 2022, according to India Meteorological Department (IMD) data. Fifty-nine of the 75 districts recorded ‘extremely low’ rainfall. These districts are suffering a ‘large deficit’, which means they received less than 60 per cent...

-Down to Earth Scanty rainfall, heat up to 48°C mar paddy prospects    Punjab has been able to bring only 77,000 hectares (ha) under direct-seeded rice (DSR) through June 30 this year, way below the 1.2 million ha (mha) it targetted. This is also substantially less than last year’s 0.6 mha and 0.5 mha in 2020. High temperatures and deficient rainfall are mainly to blame, said farmers. Other challenges included closed canals, erratic...

One is almost certain to hear this from an economist that if something is available at free of cost or at a subsidised rate thanks to government intervention, then people tend to overuse or overconsume such goods/ commodities. So, the best solution is to create a market for such 'almost freely available' or 'highly subsidised' goods or commodities. Once people start paying to use or consume such goods/ commodities, they...