-The Indian Express Why assembly election verdicts should occasion a rethink on loan waivers, MSP raises The results of the elections to state assemblies should be a humbling experience for the BJP. Political pundits have started analysing the verdict, since the reasons for the BJP’s defeat have important implications for the parliamentary election of 2019. One factor that is being flagged by analysts is farm distress. Farmers across the country are not...

Just a few days ahead of the Kisan Mukti March in Delhi NCR, the provisional results of the Agriculture Census 2015-16 became available in the public domain. The report, among other things, highlights the long-term problems affecting Indian agriculture including fragmentation of land holdings (particularly the marginal and small ones) and shrinking average size of farm land. The provisional results of the latest Agriculture Census reveal that at the national level...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: For a long time the perils of dumping untreated faecal sludge into our rivers has been ignored in our government policies. Today, this neglect has manifested to become one our gravest public health threats. And now research has found the highest concentration of highly antibiotic resistant E.coli bacteria just besides Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram on the riverfront. It is exactly here that the Chandrabhaga drainage spews out...

-Livemint.com The recent Chhath festival in Bihar saw a visible thinning of the workforce in Kerala, clearly the ground zero of India’s mass labour movement Eroor (Ernakulam): Oh, I miss Vicky!,” Ravi says, in Malayalam, as he rolls up his sleeves. He is walking quickly back to his house from a protest—that quintessential Kerala activity. Breathing in the pungent chemicals of Kochi’s industrial belt in Eroor as he walks, Ravi (who did...

-Financial Express Mathadi leaders Shashikant Shinde and Narendra Patil met Minister for Cooperation and Marketing Subhash Deshmukh and had sought more clarity on the role of commission agents in APMCs as well as transactions on eNAM After traders at Vashi in Maharashtra called for a one-day bandh on Tuesday against the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing Development and the Regulation Act Ordinance, over 4-5 lakh Mathadi ( workers who carry loads) workers...