-The Indian Express The fight to retain the APMC despite its shortcomings is also a fight to extract a commitment from the government on maintaining state support to the agricultural sector. On Friday, September 25, farmers’ organisations across the country gave a call for a bandh to protest the three bills passed by Parliament. These bills, namely the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 (FPTC), the Farmers (Empowerment...

-Press release by Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements dated 23rd September, 2020 ICCFM is a non-partisan national alliance of farmers movements representing 12 farmers' organizations across India based in UP, MP, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Haryana. Bharatiya Kisan Union, Karnataka State Farmers Association, Tamilaga Vivasayigal Sangham are among the major farmer movement. As with many other farmers organizations in this country, ICCFM is gravely worried about the anti-farmer bills...

-Livemint.com * Market participation is meaningless without information. Should every Indian farmer get a smartphone? * Without internet connectivity and market intelligence, the transaction cost associated with selling in places outside the local market are higher than the value of the produce FATEHPUR: Kamlakant is a smallholder farmer in Daulatiyapur village of Fatehpur district in Uttar Pradesh. He is an enthusiastic vegetable cultivator and every season, he searches for answers to three basic...

-Livemint.com * The upcoming kharif Harvest season will put the new regime to test and farm unrest may spread beyond Punjab and Haryana if crop prices take a hit NEW DELHI: The new legislations that look to rejig India’s vast and fragmented agriculture markets together with amendments to the Essential Commodities Act are significant structural changes brought in by the Narendra Modi government. So far protests by farmers have largely concentrated in...

-The Telegraph The slump in the GDP and the pain ahead The -23.9 per cent shrinkage in the April-June GDP is not a surprise as nearly half the period witnessed a national lockdown. It’s also not surprising that this loss is the world’s steepest for India’s lockdown was the most stringent and the accompanying fiscal policy response the weakest. But the quarter per cent slump did surprise most analysts who have since...