-Kafila.org With depressing regularity, the newspapers have been reporting farmers' suicides in many states. Recently, P Sainath wrote on BBC that around 296,438 farmers have committed suicide since 1995. He also mentions that cash crop cultivators of cotton, sugar cane, vanilla, pepper, groundnut etc account for the bulk of those suicides. According to a PIL heard by the Supreme Court in December 2014, around 3146 farmers in Maharashtra have committed suicide...

-The Hindu Given industry concerns and the desire to accelerate industrialisation, the government could have reopened the debate on the land act. Instead, it has wholly accepted one perception of the conflict, and sought to undo the compromise embodied in the 2013 Act without a review This article will not go into the question of the propriety of the ordinance route to legislation in this case, but will try to present a...

-Down to Earth The programme does not address challenges that farmers face in eastern states Farmers in Jharkhand have not derived significant benefits from the new Green Revolution programme initiated by the Centre in 2010-11, according to a report by non-profits working with the farmers in the state. The report claims that the government tried to implement the 1960s model of Green Revolution that increased agricultural production in Punjab and Haryana, without...

-PTI Indore: A group of tribal farmers in a remote hilly area of Madhya Pradesh's Barwani district continue to use a century-old irrigation method instead of modern motor pumps, enabling them to grow crops throughout the year. By following the technique, popularly called 'Paat' among tribals, 13 farmers in the hilly Aavli village of the district are able to irrigate their fields, spread on 125 acres of land, from far off water...

-The Indian Express Just a few years ago, the World Bank in its World Development Report claimed that migration from rural India to urban centres is "natural" and the same should not be interrupted or prevented through schemes like the MGNREGA. This was a shocking statement to all those who know why there is huge and ever-growing migration to cities, not only of the labour class but also of farmers and small...