-The Hindu Business Line Eleven years since its inception, the State’s farmer’s debt relief commission has quietly eased the burden of debt on poor farmers, and grown to be a model worth emulating Earlier this week 35,000 debt-ridden farmers coursed through Maharashtra, walking 180 km on blistered soles, to converge at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan demanding freedom from debt and fair compensation for their produce. As the government scrounged for solutions, it could’ve...

-Livemint.com To stabilize crop prices and make them remunerative, the Swaminathan Commission proposed significant improvements in the implementation of MSPs Across the country, farmers are furious—and rightfully so. Four years ago, they helped bring the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power, believing Narendra Modi’s claims that they would no longer suffer official neglect. But since then, conditions in agriculture have got worse. Earlier problems have worsened as farm incomes have been squeezed...

-The Indian Express While Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara seeks to recover from the recent disastrous bypoll where the BJP lost two Lok Sabha seats and an assembly seat to the Congress, MP’s three-time CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan aims to mitigate three-time anti-incumbency. From crop loan and land revenue waivers to bonus payments and free crop storage, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh announced a slew of sops Monday targeting farmers and rural voters...

-TheWire.in The finance minister has made a big announcement on minimum support price, but he should make it clear whether all he is promising is to take the prices back to the UPA-II levels. The government has done it again. Like last year, there has been much hype about a pro-farmer Budget, but in actuality it rests on misleading claims which don’t address the farming crisis. Last year, the agriculture credit target...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘Green paper’ says Centre has not helped farmers in crisis; net returns at MSP in last four years much lower than under UPA-II New Delhi: Farmer groups on Tuesday termed the incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre the most anti-farmer in the history of independent India and said its budgetary announcements were just grandstanding, with little action or money to back them. Bringing out what they...