-Frontline.in Hidden in the Modi government’s Budget promises to India’s farmers, who are in distress, is the admission: we have failed you. No section of society has perhaps fared worse under the Narendra Modi regime than small peasants and agricultural labourers. Rural India, particularly peasants, voted in large numbers for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2014. Once in power, the NDA government promised to double the incomes...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation, coupled with daily limits on cash transactions and fear of being tracked by revenue authorities post the Goods and Services Tax regime, have made traders less inclined to purchasing and stocking up produce during the harvest season. The defining feature of Indian agriculture in the last five years — much of it under the Narendra Modi government’s tenure — has been low prices for farm produce. The accompanying...

-Down to Earth Sunita Narain on cow-vigilantism, cattle trade and the collapse of the livestock economy of India I would not advocate vegetarianism. When I reasoned this out in this column a few years ago, I received the usual insults. Environmentalists are expected to be vegetarian, or better vegan! But what many didn’t register was my emphasis: “I am saying this as an Indian environmentalist; not global or western environmentalist.” My argument has...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...

-The Hindu Business Line Opening farm sector for Global Trade will give farmers a bigger market: S Narayan Farm sector distress is expected to worsen, cautioned S Narayan, who was the Economic Adviser to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. No remunerative prices Speaking on ‘Economy in Election Year’, organised by the Chennai chapter of the Observers Research Foundation, Narayan said the underlying problem is one of abundance of production and farmers not getting...