-TheWire.in Unlike China which supported productivity-enhancing R&D investments, India’s focus has been on politically-driven subsidies that mainly benefit large farmers. We saw the trailer two years ago. TV news visuals of the plight of thousands of rural poor marching to Mumbai shocked the relatively affluent residents of India’s financial capital. The March 2018 Maharashtra farmers’ march and now the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown-triggered migrant exodus has exposed the stark duality of India –  an...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmer suicides are an unfortunate result of the agrarian distress plaguing the rural economy of many states of the country. Marathwada and Vidarbha regions in Maharashtra have recorded very high numbers of farmer suicides, and an attempt to calculate the number of suicides and the suicide mortality rate is the first step towards gaining an in-depth understanding of the prevalence and seriousness of the issue. An analysis...

-The Hindu Diverse regimes in Early Modern India often saw the distress migration of rural inhabitants when, much like today, displacement became the forced choice between hope and hunger The scale of the migrant labourer exodus from the precariousness of cities to the security of their home villages has few parallels in Indian history. Economist Chinmay Tumbe estimates that by the end of May, no fewer than 30 million Indians had moved...

On June 5th this year, the Stranded Workers Action Network, comprising volunteers from various civil society groups, academics and students enrolled in university education, released its third report entitled ‘To Leave or Not to Leave? Lockdown, Migrant Workers, and Their Journeys Home’. Among other things, the latest report states that nearly four-fifth of migrant workers (out of 5,911) who called SWAN volunteers for help (altogether 821 distress calls were made)...

-Down to Earth Distress among marginal farmers and unavailability of food to migrant labourers has been largely ignored in Union government’s economic stimulus   Agriculture and allied activities are considered ‘essential’ and officially face no restriction to harvest and supply to the market, even in the middle of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. But an agrarian crisis stemming from systemic failures needs to be considered for immediate policy response. The current distress...