The News Minute

I remember when I first met 61-year-old Nachammal in April, 2017, sitting on the pavement at Jantar Mantar. She claimed she had been threatened by bank officials when she had been unable to pay off her Rs 3 lakh loan from a nationalised bank. ‘Why do you eat? Why do you wear clothes? Sell them. Sell your daughter but pay off the loan’ is what she heard from them. The interest and fine brought the overdue amount to Rs 7 lakh. She even sold her mangalsutra, but it was a pittance compared to the loan amount she was supposed to pay. “Bank officials threatened to grab my land,” she told me.

Mint

There is no crop which is more egalitarian than the potato. From overpriced wedges to the plates of the poor, the humble potato is so omnipresent that any controversy surrounding it evokes sharp reactions. India recently landed in the midst of one such controversy after PepsiCo India sued at least four farmers from Gujarat for using its proprietary FC5 variety—which goes into making Lay’s chips—without the company’s consent. The case is important for several reasons. For the first time in India, a group of farmers has been sued over intellectual property rights violation. The stakes are high since it will set a precedent, but to begin with, PepsiCo seems to have filed the case with an inaccurate understanding ...

The Hans India

Agriculture Minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy, while visiting the agriculture market yard on Wednesday in Wanaparthy, had given assurance to famers to not to get worried as the government was ready to procure even wet paddy at Minimum Support Price.

oHeraldo

Deputy CM and Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai urged the Education Minister to include agriculture in the school curriculum as work experience for students. Applauding the summer agriculture camp at Fatorda organised by ‘We for Fatorda’, the minister said that it was a successful attempt to inculcate love for agriculture among the students. He called upon all the MLAs and his department to conduct similar camps across all constituencies.

The Wire

On February 7, 2019, while speaking in parliament, Narendra Modi appeared to indicate that his government had inaugurated 99 irrigation projects during its term. Publicly available data, however, shows that this is not true.