-Down to Earth The back of the Indian farmour is against the wall amid rising costs of inputs, climate change-induced risks and faulty market mechanisms More than 28 farmers and farm labourers die by suicide in India every day, according to the 2021 State of India’s Environment (SoE) report — an annual brought out by Down To Earth in association with Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The SoE report highlighted...

-The Hindu Federalism and good governance need engagement between people and officials, as the MGNREGA programme shows It is 45 days and counting since lakhs of farmers have gathered in Delhi protesting against the farm laws. Leaving aside the merits and demerits of the laws, many are aggrieved about the process of promulgation of the laws as it lacked any consultation with those that the laws are purportedly meant to serve. Very often,...

-Newsclick.in No scheme touches them, no law reaches them – but they hope that a better deal for farmers will benefit them. At the Ghazipur border between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Manish and a few of his friends have joined the farmers’ dharna only a few days back. They live in Baghpat district, barely a few dozen kilometres from the protest site but it could be another continent, or another age. “In the...

-TheWire.in Researchers have found that small and marginal farmers and Dalit landless labourers are worst affected by the region's agrarian distress. Sangrur/Patiala (Punjab): In the villages of Punjab, strike a conversation on farming  expenses with anyone, and they will say, “Karja tan hai hi (Of course, we have taken loans).” It’s these loans – from both institutional and non-institutional sources – that largely help the rural economy run in the state. But...

-Hindustan Times The anti-CAA protests, the defiance of migrants, and now the farmers’ stir show that the everyday practice of democracy is a powerful corrective in the face of arbitrary and unilateral State decisions Three events defined India’s political landscape in 2020. The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the migrant labour crisis that unfolded as workers defied lockdown orders and asserted their rights, choosing to walk home in the face...