-Down to Earth As farmers' protests demanding loan waiver pick up across the country, there are other people who owe them huge amount of money: the insurance companies A year after the Union government launched the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather-based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) in April 2016 to enable farmers tide over chronic crop losses due to various calamities, it clearly emerges that the insurance companies,...

-TheWire.in The Modi government has struggled to achieve success on crucial development fronts such as farmer incomes and job creation. Public memory in India is amnesic. Still, it is difficult to forget that Narendra Modi rode to power in 2014 on the plank of promoting development, aptly captured by ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’. This is not a novel idea in itself as others too have tried to win over voters adopting similar...

-Livemint.com The government’s model law for agricultural reforms aims to allow farmers a wider choice of markets beyond the local mandi New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is working on creating a common agricultural market that will improve the lot of farmers and the efficiencies of India’s notoriously inefficient farm-produce markets. The government put out a model law proposing a fundamental reset in the way agricultural markets operate on 24 April....

-Livemint.com Abject poverty, high levels of debt, and crop failures among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to a study commissioned by agriculture ministry New Delhi: Abject poverty, high levels of indebtedness, crop failures and pressure to repay loans are among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to the preliminary findings of a study commissioned by the Union agriculture ministry. The broad findings of the study conducted by the Institute for...

-TheWire.in The insurance coverage in 2015 was 22.3%, with a government expenditure of Rs 2,955 crore. But by spending 4.5x since, how does the government admit to a coverage of only 23%? Farmer suicides and agrarian distress have likely never been among the national public debates as they are right now. A group of Tamil Nadu farmers, whose protests in New Delhi were dubbed ‘bizarre’ but who were actually desperate for debate and...