Tobacco auctions begin on promising note
The Hindu
Auctioning of tobacco, the principal commercial crop in the drought-prone areas of Prakasam and SPSR Nellore districts, began on an encouraging note on Monday.
Inaugurating the auctions at Ongole II auction platform along with Tobacco Board Chairman K.Raghunatha Babu, State Energy Minister Balineni Srinivasa Reddy said the State government for the first time had directly entered the market in a crisis situation in the wake of a slump in the market. “We will not leave the farmers to fend for themselves in the event of any crisis,” he said, adding that the farmer-friendly government would closely follow the market condition and enter the market if needed to bail out the farmers, who were in debts for the last four years because of unfavourable climatic and market conditions.
In , the grape capital of India and host of the Simhastha Kumbh Mela every 12 years, environmental concerns over a plan to cut 1,800 trees for the proposed Sadhugram project in the historic Tapovan area have sharpened political fault lines ahead of local body elections. The issue has pitted both Sena factions against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which leads the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra. While Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief, and Uddhav Thackeray, chief of the Shiv Sena (UBT), remain political rivals, their parties have found rare common ground in Tapovan, where authorities propose clearing trees across 34 acres to build Sadhugram and a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) hub, as part of a ₹300-crore infrastructure push linked to the pilgrimage.












