-Livemint.com Farmers commit suicides less often than non-farmers but they are more likely to commit suicides because of economic distress compared to others With an ongoing petition in the Supreme Court on farmer suicides , and a growing clamour for farm loan waivers across several states of the country, the debate on farm suicides in India seems to be heating up once again. Several commentators and researchers have claimed for long that farmers...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...

-The Indian Express In some states like Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the increase in daily wages under MGNREGA from April 1 is just Re 1. IN THE lowest wage hike under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme, the Centre has increased wages by an average of just 2.7 per cent this financial year. In some states like Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the increase in daily...

-The Financial Express The one irrefutable lesson from MGNREGA, is that once introduced, there will be no going back India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. In terms of Gini coefficient, i.e., measure of income inequity, India ranks a dismal 135 out of 187 countries. This means that most of the prosperity that an increasingly economically liberalised India is seeing, belongs primarily to the top-income percentiles. One in...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: The Northeast has seen more than four-time jump in farmers' suicides from 21 in 2014 to 95 cases last year. The region also saw 105 suicides by agricultural workers last year, mostly in Assam and Tripura, revealed the report on suicides in the farming sector of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2015. Farmers' suicides have assumed serious proportions mostly in western and southern states. This rise in suicides in the...