-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...

-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...

-Hindustan Times In the discourse on agriculture, for instance, farmer suicides are cited as the biggest proof of the agrarian crisis in the country by a large section. India’s political economy discourse is often a prisoner of the dictum that when there is no theory, there is a conspiracy theory. Corruption, rather than an accentuated cyclical shock after the global financial crisis, combined with the poor governance structures in Indian...

-The Hindu 2018 alone has seen the death of five petitioners Patna: While the recent brazen murders of businessmen and a bank official in Bihar has caught media attention, the State is equally dangerous for Right to Information (RTI) activists, with five of them been killed in 2018 alone. The latest victim was Bhola Sah. Mr. Sah, who was supervising the construction of his house in Banarjhop village in Banka district, was asked...

-The Hindu Rubbish generated in the tourist hotspot has gone up drastically following the release of ‘3 Idiots’ Srinagar: Authorities in tourist hotspot Leh have put 65 tonnes of waste to productive use after the ecologically sensitive region’s garbage output went up drastically following the release of 3 Idiots on Christmas day nine years ago, drawing tourists in hordes. “The 65,000 kg of waste was first collected from the Choglamsar, Nubra, Nimo and...