When he drank poison on January 11, farmer Hargovind Harne’s run-down hut was bursting with freshly harvested paddy. Yet he was neck-deep in debt. Even the bottle of pesticide that he used to take his own life had been bought on credit, as the bill shows. His large stock of grain wasn’t the only puzzle in the 47-year-old’s suicide. Vidarbha is infamous for continuing suicides by cotton farmers but Harne grew food,...
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A suicide every 30 minutes and more bad news
A report by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) reveals that there is a strong link between farmers’ suicides and denial of social and gender justice. It says that farmers’ suicides, which are a grim marker of India’s agrarian crisis, will become more severe in times to come due to the existing gender and caste-based discrimination. Issued by CHRGJ and the International Human Rights Clinic (at New York...
More »Farm Loans up in 2010-11; low enlistment of new borrowers a concern
-The Economic Times Farm credit flow has registered a quantum jump during 2010-11, accordign to figures put out by the government, although apprehensions have been expressed that there is urgent to enlist new loanees rather than give credit to time and again to the same borrowers. Credit institutions disbursed Rs. 4,26,531 crore during the year against the target of Rs.3,75,000 crore, an official statement said here. Agency-wise, Commercial Banks with...
More »Spurt in farmer suicides in Bundelkhand by Swati Mathur
Everything is in short supply here, especially hope. There was a flicker of it, though, when on April 30 Prime Minister Manmohan Singhcame here with Rahul Gandhi. Maybe the people were expecting a miracle, an end to the misery created by season after season of bad crops and the resultant rising debt. Their hope proved to be short-lived. Since then, nine farmers have killed themselves in Banda district alone, the...
More »Madurai chosen for rural pension scheme
-The Hindu Madurai has been chosen as one among eight districts in the country by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for implementing a micro pension project for the rural poor. As part of the launch preparations, a stakeholders' workshop was held here on Monday. Representatives of State Bank of India (SBI), Indian Bank, Canara Bank, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), Tamilnad Merchantile Bank (TMB), Union Bank of India (UBI), Pandyan...
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