Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/celebrating-diwali-during-a-downturn-sayantan-bera-4688303.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Celebrating Diwali during a downturn -Sayantan Bera | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Celebrating Diwali during a downturn -Sayantan Bera

-Livemint.com

* A field report from the agriculturally prosperous heartland reveals a lacklustre festival of lights

* Delay in farm loan waivers has worsened farmers’ credit score. So, financiers are unwilling to advance new loans to them for buying farm equipment

SRI GANGANAGAR:
"How are you going to celebrate Diwali?" My question gets Roopa Ram, an elderly farmer, so amused that he thinks it’s important to do some explaining to a reporter from Delhi. So, he sits down, making space for himself in a tiny grocery store in Jorkia, a village on the north-western edge of Rajasthan, adjacent to India’s border with Pakistan. “This is chugai season... the time to pluck cotton (the main cash crop of the region). So, everyone works till afternoon. Even on the day of Diwali. No one wants to lose the ?7 they get for every kilogramme of cotton they pluck," he says.

“They then return home, freshen up, and head to the market to buy a kilogramme of jalebi and potatoes, and, maybe, some firecrackers. Outside homes, earthen lamps are lit. The oil is poured in such measly quantities that the lamps go off by eight in the evening. Women make poori to go with a curry made with boiled potatoes. Youngsters in the village celebrating the short-lived earnings from plucking cotton get drunk on country liquor. Then, they struggle to find potatoes in the curry. The old get to taste the jalebi, if any is left. That is how we celebrate," he adds.

Please click here to read more.