The total number of farm suicides in the country has reduced from 12,602 to 11,370 between 2015 and 2016 viz. a fall by 9.8 percent. This has been revealed recently in a reply by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Parshottam Rupala in the Lok Sabha. So, one may wonder why there is such a hue and cry about rural distress and agrarian crisis...

-The New Indian Express Something remarkable happened when the farmers came marching to Mumbai recently. Instead of greeting them with hostility, Mumbaikars welcomed them with affection, food and water. This change in attitude was triggered by the farmers’ extraordinary discipline and their efforts to ensure minimal disruption to the Mumbaikars’ routines. Even hard-boiled journalists acknowledged, for a brief moment, urbanites had realised  our farmers and adivasis were indeed facing difficult times. The...

-The Hindu Business Line The Indian wheat situation is turning worrisome, not because of the over-optimistic production estimate released by the Ministry of Agriculture recently, but because of the curRent price levels that provide no encouragement to farmers. Fraught with possibilities, the wheat may go the pulses way. The policy-makers may soon be forced to impose import restrictions in the form of higher tariffs. Output, prices To start with, no one in the trade...

-The Indian Express Schemes to ensure that farmers get fair returns will come a croppper unless trade and tariffs are synced with minimum support prices. With farm prices of several commodities falling way below their minimum support prices (MSPs) in 2016-17 and 2017-18, farmers have been under increasing stress. The Centre and several state governments are searching for ways and means to support farmers. In his recent address (Mann ki Baat), the...

-News18.com When over 50,000 farmers in Maharashtra marched towards Mumbai with similar demands on Sunday, they followed Vijoo Krishnan, a man hailing from a small hamlet in Kerala's Kannur, which has turned out to be a great source of inspiration to the millions of Communists in the state. On December 20, 1946, in Karivelloor, a small village in the northern part of Kerala — then called Malabar, which was a part of...