-The Hindu Farming must be treated as a market-based enterprise and made viable on its own terms The week-long farmers’ march which reached Mumbai earlier this month, on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930, was unprecedented in many ways. It was mostly silent and disciplined, mostly leaderless, non-disruptive and non-violent, and well organised. It received the sympathy of middle class city dwellers, food and water from bystanders, free medical services...

-Business Standard While ADVVDRS was hailed as a key reason for UPA's return to power in 2009, the scheme itself later drew flak for its flaws, with CAG finding many of the accounts ineligible for waiver or relief In order to help the country’s small and marginal farmers, the Congress party has promised to bring a nationwide loan waiver scheme on the lines of its 2009 programme, should the party be voted...

-ThePrint.in Renowned agricultural economist Sardara Singh Johl takes on father of green revolution M.S. Swaminathan’s idea of raising MSP to 1.5 times the production costs. New Delhi: Renowned agricultural economist Sardara Singh Johl agrees with M.S. Swaminathan, the man credited as the father of the ‘green revolution’, on the futility of loan waivers to ease farm distress. But he disagrees with a much-touted recommendation of the committee on tackling the farm crisis Swaminathan...

-ThePrint.in It is nobody’s case that problems of agriculture can be fixed by soil health cards, loan waivers, crop insurance or e-NAM. The five-day long march of 30,000 farmers from Nashik to Mumbai has touched a chord with urban India. Even though some said they were implementing the agenda of ‘urban Naxalites’, the pictures of poor tribals and farmers, men and women, old and young, walking in heat, many without shoes, will...

-The Hindu Business Line Eleven years since its inception, the State’s farmer’s debt relief commission has quietly eased the burden of debt on poor farmers, and grown to be a model worth emulating Earlier this week 35,000 debt-ridden farmers coursed through Maharashtra, walking 180 km on blistered soles, to converge at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan demanding freedom from debt and fair compensation for their produce. As the government scrounged for solutions, it could’ve...