Everything is in short supply here, especially hope. There was a flicker of it, though, when on April 30 Prime Minister Manmohan Singhcame here with Rahul Gandhi. Maybe the people were expecting a miracle, an end to the misery created by season after season of bad crops and the resultant rising debt. Their hope proved to be short-lived. Since then, nine farmers have killed themselves in Banda district alone, the...

The farmers' struggle against land acquisition only shows that from passive forms of protest they have turned to active forms of resistance. THE recent agitation by farmers in Uttar Pradesh against cropland acquisition for non-agricultural purposes is only the latest in a long series of protests by farmers and rural communities, which started a decade ago in different parts of the country and which gathered momentum over the past five...

Import duty on raw silk has been cut from 30 to 5 per cent The mood is grim at the Government Cocoon Market in Ramanagaram. The auction of silk cocoons is on; however, no silk reeler is willing to pay more than Rs. 110 for a kg. At this rate, the loss incurred by each farmer is a heartbreaking Rs. 60 a kg. Double whammy The loss is greater and the risk more...

Mass leaders in India have a tradition of broaching BSP —bijli, sadak and pani — issues to strike a chord during election rallies. However, in almost each of her 150-plus rallies across the state in the election season, Mamata Banerjee deviated from the conventional mix and squeezed into her speech phrases like debt burden, public finance and economic recovery. Whether such esoteric terms found resonance or not, Mamata did get across the...

The case of each areca grower who has taken loans from cooperative societies or banks will be studied individually to determine whether the farmer is genuinely unable to repay the loan. This decision was taken at a meeting of areca growers with Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav and officials of various departments on Thursday. Mr. Yadav made the suggestion after listening to a delegation of farmers, most of them members of the Karnataka...