-TheCitizen.in Fish lovers in West Bengal may soon be threatened with a scarcity in the supply of fish or rise in price or both. The fishermen and the trawler owners are very angry. Without giving a thought to the consequences of a continuous arbitrary rise in the price of diesel, petrol, kerosene and cooking gas by the central government has led to severe disbalance in the finance and employment sector in the...
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India’s farm crisis is of the middle peasant, not the chhota kisan -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express It is the rural middle class — which experienced a roughly four-decade spell of prosperity from the 1970s and now has its back to the wall — that’s at the forefront of the agitation against the farm reform laws. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has defended his government’s agricultural reform laws by invoking Chaudhary Charan Singh and pointing to the “dayaniya sthiti (sorry plight)” of marginal farmers. These below-one-hectare cultivators...
More »Future of Indian agriculture and small farmers: Role of policy, regulation and farmer agency -Sukhpal Singh
-Down to Earth blog The distress among small farmers in India is market-driven to a large extent in both ways — too much protection (minimum support price) or too little. The question of future of Indian agriculture has been around for some time now since the agrarian distress and crisis in the sector. It has become important in the context of the spate of recent reforms that include permitting private wholesale markets,...
More »Imbalances in India’s cereal economy need more than a short-term fix -Jean Dreze
-The Indian Express The need of the hour is to expand distribution under the PDS. Failing that, the country is heading towards another round of wasteful stock accumulation even as poor people struggle to feed their families. The paradox of “hunger amidst plenty” has haunted India for a long time and shows no sign of going away. On the contrary, it reached a new plane in 2020. On the one hand, the...
More »Farmers’ agitation will impact global trade -Devinder Sharma
-The Tribune Instead of leaving the farmers to face the vagaries of markets, which have pushed them globally into a debt trap, the demand for ensuring that no trading takes place below the MSP not only provides farmers with a safety net but it will also gradually become an economic design for the rest of the world to emulate. Across the globe, farmers are suffering the consequences of keeping farm-gate prices...
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