The Indian Express

The debate over chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao being conferred with Agriculture Leadership award by Indian Council for Food and Agriculture (ICFA) intensified with the Telangana Congress alleging that ICFA is an organisation with dubious background and conferring the award on Rao, who did nothing for the agriculture sector in the past four years, is shocking. TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Wednesday said, “In the last four years of his governance, Rao pushed the farming community into the most serious crisis ever.

The Indian Express

In the Union Budget of 1998-99, the then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha announced the issuance of Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) to farmers, with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development being asked to formulate a “model scheme” for uniform adoption by Indian banks. The product was introduced in August 1998 and turned out to be an instant hit with farmers. The KCC mode of financing not only helped accelerate farm credit flows, but also resulted in significant changes in their composition and the shares of different institutional lending agencies.

Agriculture Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy said that the State government has allotted Rs 18,000 crore for agriculture with a view to make agriculture a profitable activity and help the farmers. The government is ready to further allocate another Rs 1,000 crore to the sector, he said.

The Economic Times

Fields have been flooded in many states, damaging standing crops, but officials said there would be no major impact on output as farmers can replant rice, castor and pulses after water recedes and the industry expects prices to be unaffected because of adequate food stocks, making rainfall in September critical. “Overall the floods will not make a major impact on production but it will locally impact farmers and livestock,” said AK Singh, DDG-Agricultural Extension, Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

The Indian Express

Despite having announced a one-time settlement scheme, the Punjab government may not get back its dues from “defaulter rice millers”, several of which even sold their machinery years back and shifted to other businesses. Around 250 to 300 defaulters, most of them from Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Sangrur, Firozpur, collectively owe the state government Rs 2,000-2,400 crore. Most of these mills owe between Rs 5 crore and Rs 10 crore each to the government.

News Nation

Marking a noteworthy advancement, scientists have invented high-tech “twistron” yarns that can produce electricity when it is stretched or twisted. According to the researchers, these yarns that are made up of carbon nanotubes can be used to harvest energy from the motion of ocean waves or from temperature fluctuations.