-Livemint.com Odisha is a front-runner in women’s land ownership, much of it owing to government policies from the 1980s. But has ownership led to empowerment? Surrounded by sun-drenched paddy fields interspersed with jackfruit and banana trees, Sanakusupadu is a hamlet in Odisha’s tribal-dominated district of Rayagada. Here, almost every married woman owns land. No matter how small the holding, land documents of the 62 households in this village bear the names of the...

-Hindustan Times According to the 2011 Census, 45% of India’s total workers are employed in the non-agricultural sector. This number excludes those who work as either cultivators or agricultural labourers Employment generation (or the lack of it) will probably be the biggest issue in next year’s general elections. India’s employment challenge is broadly perceived as one of moving agricultural workers to remunerative jobs in the non-farm sector, and rightly so. With a...

-The Tribune Agrarian society vs a non-agrarian economy poses a huge political challenge. JUST how many farmers are there in India? This is not merely a statistical question. This is a question of policy and political significance. We have all grown up reading about India as an agrarian economy, with a majority of its population engaged in farming. Does that continue to be the case? Or has the number of farmers declined...

-Hindustan Times Unless the deficit is addressed, plans to improve incomes in the farm sector are unlikely to succeed According to the 2011 Census, 45% of India’s workforce is engaged in non-agricultural activities i.e. professions other than cultivation and agricultural labour. This number diminishes by slightly more than two percentage points if one excludes two other primary sector activities: mining and plantations, forestry and fishing. Who are these workers? Which industries and...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org Imagine a democratic protest where a million farmers, labourers and others march to the capital and compel discussion of the exploding crisis of the countryside in a special three-week session of Parliament India’s agrarian crisis has gone beyond the agrarian. It’s a crisis of society. Maybe even a civilizational crisis, with perhaps the largest body of small farmers and labourers on earth fighting to save their livelihoods. The agrarian crisis is no...