-Livemint.com Inflation for services and a few discretionary items has been higher in rural areas compared to urban centres When income is stagnant, a logical outcome could be curtailing expenditure. But rural India seems to be fine with paying higher prices for services that range from education to matinee shows. The chart above shows inflation for services and a few discretionary items has been higher in rural areas compared to urban centres. It...

Passionate about the deepening of agrarian crisis, quite often journalists and media persons cite figures related to farm suicide (as provided by the National Crime Records Bureau) in order to draw the attention of the readers. They do so in the following ways: * Compare the absolute number of farm suicides (viz. suicide by cultivators + suicide by agricultural labourers) across regions/ states for a particular time point or time period...

-The Telegraph Their demand for assured remunerative prices, therefore, is perfectly justified There are occasions when one suddenly becomes aware not just of the inadequacy of economic concepts for understanding reality but even of their obfuscating role. One such occasion was the recent kisan march in Delhi. The peasants have been facing distress for long, which has resulted in more than three lakh suicides over the last two-and-a-half decades, in growing indebtedness...

-Firstpost.com The first reaction of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government after the party's debacle in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan seems to be to waive farm loans, which is a telling comment on the state of the agrarian distress in India and the need to pay immediate attention to the crisis. This was expected, too, since 90 percent of the rural constituencies in Madhya Pradesh...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The prime minister’s pet scheme to ensure higher income for farmers through robust procurement in coordination with states is moving at a snail’s pace, with just about 11% of the target achieved in the first two months, officials said. Food Corporation of India (FCI) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (Nafed), which have a target to procure 33 lakh tonne of oilseeds and pulses...