-Frontline As rural Karnataka reels under an unprecedented wave of suicides by farmers, the State administration looks on, unwilling to address the reasons that have rendered rural livelihoods fragile. DEATH stalks rural Karnataka. In the 41 days between July 1 and August 10, as many as 245 farmers committed suicide, an average of six a day; since April 1, 284 farmers have taken their lives. As a bewildered State government gropes...

-The Indian Express Chandigarh: The agriculturist claimed that the severity of the crisis could be gauged from the spate of increasing farmer suicides, farmer debt and minimum support price. Agriculturalist Devinder Sharma said that Indian agriculture was facing crisis, primarily of sustainability and economic viability, during a press conference held at the Kisan Bhawan in Sector 35 Tuesday. Sharma claimed that the severity of the crisis could be gauged from the spate of...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmers' unions and political parties have been demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan minimum support price (cost plus 50%) to address agrarian crisis and farmers' distress. But they have not raised demands for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers, which have the potential to provide lasting solutions. Ranjit Singh Ghuman (ghumanrs@yahoo.co.uk) is a Nehru SAIL Chair Professor, Centre for Research in Rural and...

-Down to Earth The maiden Independence Day speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the premises of the Red Fort last year, was full of how to make India clean by 2019. Soon after, the PM launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in October, with construction of toilets as its main component. Unlike the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, a similar scheme launched by the UPA government, SBM delinked itself from the Mahatma...

-Business Standard The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) helped lower poverty by  32 per cent between 2004-05 and 2011-12, lifting almost 14 million in this regard, says a recent survey by the National Council for Applied Economic Research and the University of Maryland. The study involved 26,000 households and used data from the two rounds of the India Human Development Survey, 2004-5 and 2011-12. In this period, though overall economic...