-The Hindu Business Line Arrivals more than double at key markets as farmers resort to sell-off Ahmedabad: Potato farmers in Gujarat are a worried lot. With harvest being bumper and unseasonal rains affecting the quality, potato prices have come down to one-third of what it was last year. The first estimate, as on February 2015, puts the country’s potato output at around 421 lakh tonnes (lt) – about 6 lt higher than last...

-India Water Portal Bankura in West Bengal receives 1000 mm of rainfall a year, yet thousands of adivasi farmers in the area were faced with irrigation issues -- until 'happas' came to the rescue. Amulya Soren couldn’t get stable yields in the kharif (monsoon) paddy in his farm. A member of the Santhal tribe, he was the beneficiary of a surplus land redistribution programme in Hirbandh block of Bankura, West Bengal....

-The Indian Express Delhi’s slums house people whose work makes the lives of its better-off citizens easier but they themselves offer the worst of living conditions. Lakhs of people are denied the basic need for a toilet, breeding indignity and infections. The city’ urban shelter agency DUSIB’s report on how to make the city slum-free is a challenge for any government, especially one elected on a pro-poor agenda. The Indian Express...

-NDTV There is the reality of a farmer's suicide and then there are versions of this reality. Whether you choose to accept the farmer's context of poverty, debt and extreme risk, or deny it, often depends on the class and profession you belong to. Fields pockmarked with brown mounds create a surreal setting. At least nine suicides by farmers have been linked to the crisis in West Bengal's potato belt. Farmers have...

-The Telegraph Singur, the potato bowl of Bengal, appears to have landed in trouble again. Not on account of unwilling farmers grieving over their lost assets, but on account of overproduction by the ones who didn't lose their land. Excess supply of the crop has pulled down prices, leading indebted farmers to slither down the precipice. According to media reports, matters have come to a dismal pass, with a section of...