It is being said by economists that unlike the issue of low food production that gripped Indian agriculture for long in the past, the present problem is about farmers not getting remunerative prices against the crops that they are growing. According to farmer leaders, the policymakers are too late to realise that bitter truth. As a result, there is a growing disenchantment in the rural hinterland against the ruling government...

-Economic and Political Weekly In the wake of the central government’s minimum support prices hike for kharif 2018–19, the state government in Madhya Pradesh implemented a variant of the deficiency payments system called the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana for compensating the farmers when market prices fell below MSP. Besides the problems of long delays in payments to farmers, large transaction costs that farmers incurred due to multiple registrations, and the disposal of...

-The Economic Times The world is no stranger to farm debt crises like the one India is seeing today. Back in the 1980s, the Canadian parliament enacted a law to stop foreclosures on farm debt, after prices collapsed and interest rates jumped to as high as 24%. The law was in force for a dozen-odd years. It identified insolvent farmers, facilitated agreements between the borrowers and lenders, and helped some farmers move...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: What is driving the fellowship hike protests across centrally-funded institutions such as the IITs, IISc,NITs or the IISERs? The last hike for the 1.25 lakh research scholar community was in 2014, that too after a gap of four years. With no hike since then and no communication from the government, scholars across institutions have joined hands to launch a nationwide movement demanding a better stipend. Apart...

-The Hindu They will soon become more than just a political liability The BJP’s poor performance in the recent Assembly elections underscores the extent of India’s agrarian distress and the political cost of failing to address it. The root cause of the Indian farmer’s woes is water shortage. Yet, barring policy interventions, this problem will only worsen — to the point that it will become far more serious than a mere political...