-Livemint.com/ Bloomberg Modi is facing resentment among rural households that became accustomed to large wage increases under his predecessor New Delhi: In the wheat fields stretching across northern India, farmers like Dalvir Sharma are starting to turn on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sharma, 51, voted for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last year after it promised to stem rising prices in the market. Now he’s struggling to pay back a Rs.100,000 loan...
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Tractor sales: Mirroring the rural distress -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express While tractor sales trebled during FY04-14, the last year saw a reversal in the trend with the agri industry facing multiple issues. If there is one indicator capturing the changes that took place in rural India over the past decade, along with the emerging signs of distress in the last year, it is the sales of tractors. Between 2003-04 and 2013-14, domestic tractor sales more than trebled from under...
More »Rural stress affects farmers even in prosperous states -Mayank Mishra
-Business Standard Greater adoption of cash crops combined with a collapse in the prices of agri-commodities has led farmers to the brink in major agricultural areas According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data, nearly 64 per cent of all farmer suicides in the country in 2013 took place in the four states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, raising the question: why is rural stress resulting in farmer suicides...
More »India's Rural Jobs Programme: A Dismal Appraisal -Jean Drèze
-HuffingtonPost.in In the backdrop of workers taking to the streets on Labour Day to protest against their status, here is why the government's rural jobs guarantee programme presents an alarming picture today. Declining expenditure Central Government expenditure on NREGA declined from Rs 40,100 crores in 2010-11 to Rs 38,597 crores in 2014-5. In real terms, this means a decline of about 30% over four years. As a ratio of GDP, Central Government expenditure...
More »Deepening agrarian crisis endangers food security
A recent press release from the Ministry of Agriculture shows that the area affected by recent rains and hailstorms is estimated to be 189.81 lakh hectares (on 24 April 2015), which is nearly double the total area affected that was earlier estimated on 16 April 2015. (See the link below). Experts argue that such extreme weather events may severely damage food economy of the nation, apart from breaking the spirit...
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