-Newsclick.in The Modi government paid Rs.34,859 crore and Farmers paid Rs.7,255 crore to insurance companies in three crop seasons. Among the series of schemes launched (or repackaged) by the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government, one of the most toxic is the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). Its purpose is to provide crop insurance to Farmers, that is, if the crop fails due to some non-preventable reason, such as weather calamity...

-The Economic Times The world is no stranger to farm debt crises like the one India is seeing today. Back in the 1980s, the Canadian parliament enacted a law to stop foreclosures on farm debt, after prices collapsed and interest rates jumped to as high as 24%. The law was in force for a dozen-odd years. It identified insolvent Farmers, facilitated agreements between the borrowers and lenders, and helped some Farmers move...

-Livemint.com Some perspectives on the issue seem to paper over the problem and get into comparisons There is much discourse on both the issue of agrarian distress and farmer suicides. However, there have been some arguments that seem to paper over the problem and get into comparisons—that the people who committed suicide just happened to be Farmers; that they were not poor; that (as argued by Shamika Ravi of Brookings India) the...

-Business Standard Those who want to help India's Farmers should be working much harder to figure out what they really need It’s election season in India and the money is flowing. Governments in many states have begun waiving tens of millions of dollars’ worth of loans to poor Farmers in an effort to buy their loyalty. The argument – widely accepted by politicians and journalists, the demographic groups with the least fiscal...

-Livemint.com Reeling under intense dry spell, state recorded 49% rain?deficit, says regional?disaster monitoring centre Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Wednesday declared 156 out of the 176 talukas of the state drought hit in the wake of a failed northeast monsoon. This has added to the growing call for the speedy implementation of the farm loan waiver to mitigate the deepening agrarian distress. The declaration comes months after several districts of the state...