-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...

-The Times of India Bhopal: Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh that faced three years of successive drought and farmer suicides, is now waterlogged following three days of rainfall. All districts of the backward region now face another extremity of weather - floods. All the water bodies which were empty till Wednesday, are overflowing. Thousands of people are marooned at different locations in the three districts of Tikamgarh, Damoh and Sagar because of...

-HuffingtonPost.com In Bundelkhand, people struggle for every drop of water they can find. TIKAMGARH DISTRICT: For years, Lakshman Pal, 28, planted wheat and tended to his small field here. Each season, he hoped for rain. He looked up at the sky and waited for the showers that normally came. But for the past two years, they’ve hardly come at all. His crops eventually withered and died, crumbling to dust. In early May, Pal...