-Voice of America NEW DELHI: Unseasonable rains and hailstorms have damaged wide swathes of crops in India, one of the world’s biggest producers of commodities such as wheat. The government has promised to enhance compensation for millions of farmers, who are staring at huge losses. Rains lashed much of India through March -- normally the time when dry weather and rising temperatures ripen the wheat crop, making it ready to harvest. Besides wheat,...

-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 Hindu Reviving the Farm Income Insurance Scheme could be the best tool for small and marginal farmers to fight falling prices in an increasingly globalised marketplace. Data from the recently held National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) survey show that close to 60 per cent of rural households are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. More than half of them are at risk of defaulting on their debts with either banks or...

-Livemint.com The untimely rain is set to further affect stressed rural income because of a slump in commodity prices Mathura/New Delhi: Last Monday, towards the evening, Sahab Singh, a 58-year-old farmer, walked up to his small patch of land in Mathura district of western Uttar Pradesh. Frequent spells of untimely rain over the past month had him worried. Joined by his two sons, Singh picked up two stalks of wheat that had...

-Frontline   The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...