-TheWire.in Out of the 144 recorded farmer suicides, over 40 were from outside the Cauvery delta region. Observers and farmers directly attribute demonetisation as one major factor behind the suicides. Tamil Nadu is facing one of its worst agrarian crises since independence. All of the state’s 32 districts have been officially declared as ‘drought-affected’.  In a statement issued on January 10, chief minister O. Panneerselvam announced that the move was necessitated following...

-TheWire.in To oppose the forest department’s plan to limit open grazing, the pastoral community is formally pursuing their collective land rights through the Forest Rights Act. The sun has not yet decided to rise. It’s pitch black out but a group of Maldharis has already assembled for the last session of this year’s milking competition. Their massive buffalos are majestically adorned with intricate garlands and colourful necklaces. The panch (group of five...

-The Hindu With grocers and cold storage owners refusing to accept scrapped currency notes, farmers are struggling to get potato seeds while landless labourers are forced to forgo their food. Chitra Bag and her family of six are eating less these days. They make do with one meal instead of the usual three meals, despite a gruelling 8-10 hours of work daily as landless farm labourers. Even though vegetables, grown around their...

-The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement demonetising high denomination notes on November 8, 2016, will do little to address the prime objective of flushing out black money but will adversely affect the economy in the short term, especially the informal sector, which is predominant in India, says M. Govinda Rao, a Member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission and Emeritus Professor, National Institute of Public...

-The Hindu Centre relaxes curbs, allows farmers to buy seeds with old Rs. 500 notes. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley directed commercial bank chiefs on Monday to focus their attention on rural India’s cash crunch over the next 40 days, with a war chest of Rs. 35,000 crore for providing credit to farmers by December. The Centre also relaxed its demonetisation policy for high-value currency notes further by allowing farmers to buy seeds...