-The Indian Express Curbing stubble burning is about inducing behavioural changes in farmers. Given that crop residue burning has an environmental footprint and poses health hazards, one needs to be cautious while evaluating the Centre’s policy to mitigate the crisis. But there is also an urgent need for such an evaluation. The Centre has allocated Rs 1,050 crore to the states where crop residue burning poses a pollution hazard. The Union Ministry...

-The Hindu Business Line Eleven years since its inception, the State’s farmer’s debt relief commission has quietly eased the burden of debt on poor farmers, and grown to be a model worth emulating Earlier this week 35,000 debt-ridden farmers coursed through Maharashtra, walking 180 km on blistered soles, to converge at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan demanding freedom from debt and fair compensation for their produce. As the government scrounged for solutions, it could’ve...

-Down to Earth Farmers in Gujarat prepare for a bleak future and protests as Narmada water disappears from canals after Assembly elections It's February 11. The sun is yet to shine over Morbi district in Gujarat’s arid Saurashtra region. Thousands of diesel pumps suddenly start blaring across a branch canal of the Narmada, passing through Khirai village. Hundreds of farmers have congregated along the canal to draw as much water as possible...

-The Times of India There is a saying in Harendragarh, a tribal village 50 km from Rajasthan’s Banswara town, that if a man eats the last rotla (chapatti) he will fall ill. So by default the last rotla, thinner than the rest and made from leftover dough along with the stale remains of the dal or vegetable made that day, would land on the plate of the woman of the house....

-Firstpost.com/ The Ladies Finger “After all, what did the widows of farmers know about agriculture, crop management, bank loans, private debts, land documents, health bills, power connections, panchayat politics, children’s education? The short answer was – everything.” When farmers commit suicide in India – an occurrence so common that ‘farmer suicides’ is a phrase that’s become commonplace in newsrooms and policy spaces – their deaths are assessed and a compensation is given...