-The Telegraph Ahmedabad: Jignesh Mewani, 35, had a pleasant surprise when he returned home on Monday evening. A group of neighbours in the predominantly middle-class Dalit locality of Chwalnagar in Ahmedabad were waiting for him with flowers, near a small stage they had erected to felicitate their newfound "hero". The previous evening and through the day, they had watched the young Dalit activist on TV and read about him in newspapers, awestruck at...

-Frontline A noteworthy study that provides much-needed insights into the nature and severity of the farm crisis in Punjab. There have been many studies on agrarian distress and farmer suicides in different parts of India in the last decade, including in Punjab. Most of the studies focus on a profile of the victims, mostly landowning farmers, and reasons thereof, with a sample of such farmers. In this context, this book makes a...

-The Hindu 48 % of all farmers’ suicides were of those below 35 while it was 57 % for agricultural labourers, says study. A recent study by the Indian Council for Social Science Research of the growing number of farmers’ suicides in Punjab has revealed that the agrarian crisis is hitting farmers and labourers below the age of 35 the hardest. “Nearly 48.6 per cent of farmers who have committed suicide in Punjab...

-Frontline The inability to resolve pressing problems with respect to the production, distribution and availability of food is one of the important failures of the entire economic reform process. IN the fateful month of July 1991, when the devaluation of the Indian rupee presaged the introduction of a whole series of liberalising economic reforms, agriculture was very far from the minds of most policymakers and commentators. The immediate focus was on...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: Three persons in Sehore district committed suicide under the influence of `bhoot aur pret (ghosts and spirits)'. This is the official explanation given by the Madhya Pradesh home department on Wednesday in reply to a question raised in the state assembly by Congress MLA from Ichawar constituency Shailendra Patel. Congress had asked for the exact number of suicides that have taken place in Sehore district between January...