-The Telegraph HINTERLAND: Our structural problem — small and marginal rain-fed sustenance farms, over 80 per cent of India’s agriculture sector — remains unaddressed Let’s understand the chronology: before the 2014 general elections, Narendra Modi promised farmers that he would comply with the Swaminathan Commission formula to arrive at a minimum support price for farm produce: a 50 per cent profit over the production cost. Post elections, he reneged on the promise...

-The Hindu The events of the pandemic show how it is the need of the hour to modernise India’s archaic tax Laws The word ‘lockdown’, which is Collins Dictionary’s word of the year, sums up the pain that the world underwent in 2020. As a result of the pandemic-induced lockdown, India’s GDP contracted consecutively for two quarters from April to September 2020. Some have gained from the pandemic. India’s super rich only became...

-The Indian Express If the stated objective behind enacting an anti-slaughter legislation is “preservation of cattle”, that message is clearly not being heeded by farmers. Karnataka has become the latest BJP-ruled state to put a stringent anti-cattle slaughter Bill in motion. On Friday, the state government said that it would bring in an ordinance to implement the provisions of the Bill, which was passed by the Assembly on Wednesday but could not...

-Newsclick.in This is because the new farm Laws have already paralysed mandis and traders are buying up paddy at lower prices. Even as farmer protests against the three new farm Laws entered the 17th day, information available for mandis (wholesale markets) shows that a large proportion of this year’s paddy crop is being bought from farmers at much below the government declared Minimum Support Price (MSP). This could be attributed to the...

-CaravanMagazine.in The sky had been overcast all day in Gharachon village, in Punjab’s Sangrur district. It was cold and by evening, it started to rain. None of that deterred Gurmail Kaur, as she prepared for the “Chalo Dilli” rally for the next day—an “onwards to Delhi” march called by farmers’ organisations of Punjab, to protest the three farm Laws recently enacted by the Narendra Modi government. The plan was to reach...