In an election rally in Chhattisgarh on Friday, Modi had asked the Congress to make a Congressman, from outside the Nehru-Gandhi family, president of the party for five years.

It's Day 5 of the ongoing nationwide agitation by farmers, and if its runs the planned course till June 10, not only is the supply and price situation of fresh produce likely to worsen but there may also be spill-over effects on dining out.

Speaking to Business Today, Professor RS Deshpande, senior economist and former director and currently honorary visiting professor at ISEC, Bengaluru, said the figure on the actual impact could go up as we still need to get numbers from commercial banks on the outstanding loans to such farmers (could be about 8 lakh of them).

The government would do well to fix flaws in the basic MSP structure before rolling it out for all crops.

Farmer producer organisations could help alleviate rural distress. Will the budget give them a boost?

The decision was taken at the end of a two-day Kisan Mukti Sansad, a mock-parliament, in New Delhi on November 20 and 21. Over 50,000 farmers from across the country had congregated in Delhi to be part of the event.

A campaign called \"Indebted2Farmers\", initiated on Thursday, saw Actor Kamal Haasan, actress Swara Bhaskar, singer Rabbi Shergill, Oscar nominee Vetrimaran, actresses Revathy Asha, Music director Prakash Kumar and Rohini posing for pictures with a placard that said \"Indebted2Farmers\" on Twitter and Facebook

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And over the years, the suicides grew in number, commensurate with the general suicide rate.  Any suicide is regrettable for a country and its people, but when we're referring to the country's food-providers - the anna-daatas --  it takes on a different hue altogether.

Punjab has announced crop loan waiver of up to Rs 2 lakh for farmers who own less than five acre of agricultural land and a flat relief of Rs 2 lakh for all other marginal farmers, irrespective of the loan amount.

Fact-finding missions, led by civil society groups and farmers' organisations, have identified unremunerative prices, non-receipt of crop insurance payments and demonetisation as the key issues that led to farmers' suicides and recent protests in Madhya Pradesh.

As agricultural tax proposals are now a political hot potato, farm incomes need to be examined and rationalised

India risks straining public finances and undermining already ailing state banks, economists said, after a $5.6 billion loan write-off for farmers in Uttar Pradesh and moves to do something similar in at least four other states.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to need a big rise in economic growth and a run of good weather to have a chance of fulfilling his promise to double farmers' incomes by 2022.

\"Farmer brothers and sisters, at a time when you are celebrating festivals like Lohri, Pongal and Bihu, the government has given you a gift in the form of Prime Minister's Crop Insurance Scheme,\" PM Modi tweeted hours after the Cabinet cleared the proposal.

Weather departments have predicted a dry spell of almost 6% below normal, with the deficit as high as 52%  in some regions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to provide millions of farmers with income insurance linked to crop prices, officials say, but it may not do much to ease rural distress, with small farmers standing to benefit little.

The arrival of the June-September rains has already been delayed about five days, worrying both farmers and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which is battling a rural slowdown.