-The Hindu Fundamental problems of crop and regional bias of MSP policy, govt. procurement and access to institutional credit need to be addressed. Agricultural distress is often viewed as a short-term phenomenon in which farmers look for support from various quarters on account of being unable to get a gainful return due to price crash, poor marketing facilities, rising credit burden, increasing cost of inputs and frequent occurrence of natural calamities. A...

-The Hindu What happened? On June 1, farmers in Maharashtra went on strike for the first time ever. Their agitation saw violence, and angry farmers spilling milk and throwing vegetables on the road; at one point the strike expanded into a bandh call, where agitators threatened to stop supply to urban markets. This apparently leaderless agitation grabbed the attention of both the government and the urban population, quite ignorant of conditions in...

-BBC Farmers are on the boil again in India. In western Maharashtra state, they have been on strike for a week in some seven districts now, spilling milk on the streets, shutting down markets, protesting on the roads and attacking vegetable trucks. In neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, curfew has been imposed after five farmers were killed in clashes with police on Tuesday. Last month, farmers in southern Telangana and Andhra Pradesh staged protests...

-The Times of India Demands for loan write-offs being stonewalled by the government seems to be the primary reason driving the country's farm folk to protests that are periodically degenerating into violence. Additionally, the governments' unwillingness to increase the minimum support price (MSP) to check food-induced inflation that would impact voters, too, could be a factor. While UP government's decision on April 12 to announce loan waiver for the state's three crore farmers...

-Livemint.com Maharashtra farmers continue with their protests despite assurance from chief minister Devendra Fadnavis of a debt waiver by October New Delhi: The fifth day of the strike by protesting farmers in Maharashtra on Monday witnessed unprecedented visuals of milk tankers being ferried to state capital Mumbai under heavy police cover. Not long ago, before the monsoons arrived last year, rail wagons transporting water to severely drought-hit districts in the state were...