-The Telegraph HINTERLAND: Our structural problem — small and marginal rain-fed sustenance farms, over 80 per cent of India’s agriculture sector — remains unaddressed Let’s understand the chronology: before the 2014 general elections, Narendra Modi promised farmers that he would comply with the Swaminathan Commission formula to arrive at a minimum support price for farm produce: a 50 per cent profit over the production cost. Post elections, he reneged on the promise...

-The Hindu The SJM resolution repeatedly referred to the Reliance Industries’ foray into the retail sector and warned that local kirana stores would be transformed into fulfilment centres for Jio Mart. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) on December 13 demanded that the government not allow a “nexus” of multinational companies and large Indian business houses such as Reliance Industries to dominate the retail industry in the country as it would lead to...

-TheWire.in Engaging with the agrarian question must necessarily mean questioning the development model that is hungry for land but spits out the people that live on it. Over the last few weeks, images of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh engaged in pitched battles against the police, and by extension the state, have caught the nation’s attention as it forced the government into unconditional talks with a broad coalition of farmers’...

-Newsclick.in The agitating farmers have time and again voiced apprehensions about losing their land. Will the implementation of the Farm Laws enforce such a change? On December 8, more than 50 lakh people were estimated to have observed a countrywide Bharat Bandh at around 20,000 protest sites, in as many as 22 states in India. The farmers were joined in their agitation by mass organisations, trade bodies, sectoral federations, and about 24...

-The Indian Express For a healthy agrarian sector, the state must strengthen and protect the position of the cultivator. As long as land acquisition continues at its current pace, there is little chance of that happening. As farmers from Punjab and Haryana force the central government into unconditional talks, demanding nothing less than a repeal of the three new farm laws, the BJP-led NDA government insists the reforms are “farmer-friendly”. The farm...