-Livemint.com Taking a cue from election results, political parties may announce more farm loan waivers but this will do little to fix the persistent distress in rural households The drubbing of the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh has proved beyond doubt that all isn’t well in India’s hinterland. An analysis of the poll results in these three states show that the...

-The Indian Express A Basic Income Scheme for the farmer will not tax the government’s resources. But it could stem the tide of distress in the countryside. The neglect of Indian agriculture by the NDA government, despite the tall promises in the BJP election manifesto of 2014 has been the cause of untold suffering of the Indian farmer over the last four years. This has led to large-scale farmers suicides and...

-The Telegraph Farmers' march to capital on November 29-30 to demand special session of Parliament A farmers’ organisation along with P. Sainath, the award-winning crusader for agriculturists, has been visiting college and university campuses across the country, explaining how agriculture distress affects students. The main mover behind the campus cluster meetings is the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee, an umbrella organisation of 200 farmers’ outfits, which wants to sensitise students to...

-Frontline.inJean Dreze is a well-known Indian economist working in the field of "development economics". Born in Belgium, he studied mathematical economics at the University of Essex and completed his PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute (New Delhi) in 1982.He has taught at the London School of Economics and the Delhi School of Economics and is currently visiting professor at Ranchi University as well as honorary professor at the Delhi School...

-Livemint.com The production of ‘mahua’ is finally entering the formal economy as new initiatives seek to upscale this indigenous drink, selling it across the country and even the globe It is a cloudy morning in Nangur village in Bastar district, Chattisgarh. It is a settlement of a little over 400 families, considered fairly large in these parts. We make a bumpy journey down a narrow, unpaved road intermittently shaded by sargi (sal)...