Even as the nation celebrated Dussehra, families of distressed farmers of Vidarbha  were mourning. Seven debt-ridden farmers, primarily cotton-growers, ended lives on the eve of Dussehra. The toll has risen to 30 in October and 622 farmers have killed themselves since January this year. The deceased include Waman Awari, Vijay Dandage, Dhyaneshwar Choudhari (all from Yavatmal district), Prabhakar Wakte (Akola), Ladhu Madavi (Chandrapur), Bhiagirath Pathorkar (Amravati) and Raju Lahorkar (Washim district). According...

Protecting the rights of land users from speculation, stepped up production of agrofuels and population growth is vital to combat global hunger and malnutrition, an independent United Nations expert said today. “Pressures on land are increasing as a result of speculation on farmland, the expansion of agrofuels production, and demographic growth in rural areas,” Special Rapporteur on the right to food Olivier De Schutter noted. “In this context, moving swiftly towards protecting...

The spectre of a global food crisis has reared its head again. Soaring corn prices, which on Monday recorded their biggest one-day rise since 1973, have triggered fears of a return to the turmoil of 2007-2008. Far-reaching measures are needed to prevent a recurrence. Rising prices over the last decade are in part the result of burgeoning demand from emerging markets such as China and India. The emergence of commodities as...

The amount of rural reportage in the Indian media remains far too low, with even important stories such as those on farmer suicides tending to be ignored. One of the outspoken critics of this trend has been P Sainath, rural-affairs editor of The Hindu  and 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts. He was also the journalist who originally broke the story on...

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a protest to demand the tabling of the Land Acquisition Amendment Act 2007 in the forthcoming winter session of the Parliament. This was part of the nationwide protests by the party. The kisan morcha of the party under the leadership of national president Om Prakash Dhankar held the protest at Khuda Alisher. The party has demanded that certain amendments be made in the Bill before...