-Hindustan Times Democracy is all about elected governments bowing down to people’s wishes and in that sense the decision taken by PM Modi is praiseworthy, writes VS Pandey. Prime Minister Modi, in his address to the nation, announced the withdrawal of the three contentious farm laws and apologised to all those who had suffered because of the same. Farmers, basically from the states of Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh have been...

-Down to Earth A survey in Haryana last year found that 45 per cent of 218 organic farmers got yields for wheat better than the state official average yield  The relative merit of organic farming is recognised. Still, it is usually recommended only for areas of low chemical usage and not for intensively farmed areas such as those where the Green Revolution took place in the 1960s like Punjab, Haryana and western...

The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...

-The Tribune The farmers’ protests reflect the western region’s pre-election zeitgeist Uttar pradesh’s regions spanning the west, east, centre and Bundelkhand, exist in silos, each with their own preoccupations and concerns conditioned by economics, geography and demography. However, come an election, political imperatives transcend the distinctive characteristics. UP votes as one state, and has lately, rooted for a single party or coalition. The fractured verdicts that threw UP into disarray in the...

-The Hindu Amid religious polarisation, agrarian issues still resonate with the community ALIGARH/ HATHRAS: As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faces the Jat challenge in Western Uttar Pradesh, the message from the ground in Aligarh and Hathras districts is mixed. While there are many who still swear by the ruling party for providing suraksha, bijli aur sadak (safety, electricity and roads), there are others who feel the party has let down a vote...