-Countercurrents.org More than half of rural households in India are landless, or almost so. This deprives them of the most obvious asset needed for sustainable livelihoods and food security in villages–farmland. After  agriculture the next most important source of rural livelihood in India is dairy farming but here too the household with farmland has free access to crop residues which is increasingly not available to landless households who  have to incur extra...

-Financial Express While wheat prices may firm up once the official procurement begins in all the producing states, the government will have to implement a robust procurement system for other crops to support the prices fetched by farmers. Mandi prices of most rabi crops ruled below their minimum support prices (MSPs) during the last month, even as more than half of the winter crop has been harvested (see chart). While wheat prices...

-The Indian Express Jagmohan Singh, general secretary of BKU Dakaunda and member of All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), accused the Centre of trying to “malign the image of farmers”. Ludhiana: In a letter that could trigger a new flashpoint in its ongoing five-month-long face-off with protesting farmers from Punjab, the Centre has asked the state government to take action on the findings of a probe by the BSF that migrant...

-The Indian Express After the 21-day national lockdown was announced on March 24 last year, many stranded workers without ration or money had walked thousands of kilometers or hitched overpriced rides to reach home. Mumbai: The looming threat of a lockdown in the state with a daily surge in Covid cases has put migrant workers on the edge with some contemplating returning to their native places to avoid being caught off guard...

-TwoCircles.net Twenty-year-old Azharuddin from Meerut in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is good with his hands. He created an electric cart from junk and he is now receiving online orders from abroad. Apart from this, the 21-year-old has also made an electric bicycle that can cover a distance of 100 km on a single charge. Uttar Pradesh: His father laboured all his life and his mother never went to school,...