-The Indian Express Bihar produces a quarter of India's corn, but few politicians are talking about a crop that generates over Rs 7,500 crore annual income for its farmers. Begusarai, Khagaria: “Makka hai das rupiah aur bhusa chaudah (maize is selling for Rs 10 and wheat straw for Rs 14)”. This statement by Chandrasekhar Kumar, a 15-bigha (13 acres) farmer from Sapaha village in Gogri block of Khagaria district, sums up the...
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Behind arhtiyas joining farmers’ stir: Fear of losing hundreds of crores in annual income -Anju Agnihotri Chaba
-The Indian Express There are around 28,000 active arhtiyas in Punjab out of which 50 per cent are the ‘Baniya Arhtiyas’ (traditional arhtiyas), while the other 50 per cent are ‘Zamindar Jatt Arhtiyas’ (mostly farmers’ themselves). Jalandhar: With passing of the Farmers’ Produce, Trade, and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the arhtiyas (commission agents) of Punjab are set to lose around Rs 1700 to Rs 1800 crore annually in ‘commission’. While the...
More »Why the new farm laws will not level the playing field -Arjun Harkauli
-Down to Earth Creation of unregulated private points of sale will only ensure that the produce continues to be sold as before — at below MSP and without any government support More than 86 per cent farmers in India own or cultivate on less than two acres of land and have little surplus to sell. They are the victims of middlemen (arthiya) at the mandis (local exchange markets) and are forced, by...
More »Arsenic-laced water kills over one million in India’s Ganga basin -Kapil Kajal
-TheThirdPole.net Over thirty years since high levels of arsenic was found in groundwater in West Bengal, little has been done to avert a slow-burn health crisis In the Indo-Gangetic plains, there are many widow-villages where the men have died from drinking water laced with arsenic. Women often come to the area to marry and so are only affected later in life. In India, over one million people have died in the last...
More »Writing on the wall: Infrastructure projects are destroying Western Ghats -Veena Poonacha
-Down to Earth The time to put off the inevitable question about human relationship to nature is long past. Our assumption that we can control and modify nature without repercussions is a fallacy Lofty mountains that touch the azure skies, gentle hills clothed in dense tropical forests and evergreen valleys — the Western Ghats nurture a variety of ecosystems not found in any other part of the world. Spread over 164,280 square kilometres,...
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