-IndiaSpend.com Chitrakoot (UP)/ Kota (Rajasthan)/ Mumbai: Slight and dark, Shyampati, 30, leaned against a house made fragile from unseasonal rain, and talked animatedly about life as a farmer, labourer, goat-herder, mother of four, main wage-earner and full-time housewife. Here in her rain-washed, poor village in western Uttar Pradesh's Chitrakoot district-and across the northern plains and southern plateau-Shyampati (she uses only one name) represents a hidden Indian demographic: the Indian women farmer, almost...
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The bitter tale of UP’s sugar industry -Mohammad Ali
-The Hindu Meerut (Uttar Pradesh): Harpal, a farmer in Amroha district, used his countrymade rifle to kill himself in the first week of February. The 52-year-old farmer's son Satpal said his father was worried about not being able to return the Rs. 3.27 lakh he had borrowed from local moneylenders two years ago to buy a tractor. "Sugar mills take sometimes two years to pay the full money for the sugarcane crop. We...
More »Drought in Marathwada: Ground water levels dipping every year, focus shifts to conservation -Kavitha Iyer
-The Indian Express Mumbai: Of the 76 talukas that comprise Marathwada, 61 show a drop in ground water levels compared to the previous year's post-monsoon data. But with monsoon 2015 having provided just over 53 per cent of the already poor average rainfall of 779 mm in the region, the dip in ground water levels is hardly surprising. The more alarming news, say officials, is the continuing dip in water tables in...
More »A flawed approach to food security -Deepankar Basu & Debarshi Das
-The Hindu With India continuing to be plagued by malnutrition, it is foolhardy to use the changed food production situation in the domestic economy as a reason for dismantling the FCI Within months of assuming office, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government set up a High Level Committee (HLC) in August 2014 to restructure, reorient and reform the Food Corporation of India (FCI). The eight-member HLC was chaired by senior BJP leader,...
More »The debt story less told -KP Prabhakaran Nair
-The Hindu Business Line Small and marginal farmers in rainfed regions are trapped in a losing battle with agriculture - and with life The lot of the poor Indian farmer keeps deteriorating with the passage of time. According to the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data released on December 19, 2014, during the last decade, the bloated debt of Indian agricultural households increased almost 400 per cent Even the number of heavily...
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