-AlJazeera.com How rising debts, pesticides and erratic rainfall are pushing some farmers in southern India to suicide. Karnataka: Farmers have worked the land of southern India for more than 10,000 years, making use of its fertile soil and abundant rains. Mahatma Gandhi placed Indian farmers at the centre of his vision for independence. In his 1909 book about Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule), he argued that farmers had "managed with the same kind...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi today asked the BJP "not to play politics with farmers" by waiving loans in Uttar Pradesh alone as agrarian distress was a national crisis and the Centre should come up with a "national" response. Although Rahul described the Uttar Pradesh government's decision as a "step in the right direction", he alleged inaction by the Narendra Modi government by tweeting: "I am happy the BJP has finally...

-The Hindu Business Line Bengaluru: “There is no wateror fodder this year, and it has become tough to manage my three cows,” says Nagamma, a dairy farmer at Maradevanahalli village in Maddur taluk. The cows and her one-acre farm are her only sources of livelihood. “The milk yields have reduced: these days I get only about 5-6 litres, against 10-12 litres earlier,” she adds. The Maradevanahalli village panchayat provides about 200 litres...

-The Indian Express Last week, the farmer distress reached Delhi, with a group of Tamil Nadu farmers starting a sit-in at Jantar Mantar. Nagapattinam: On January 1, R Panneerselvam stepped out of his home thrice to check on his wasted paddy crop on his 3-acre land. The final time, a tired Pannerselvam flopped down on a chair and asked his eldest son to fetch him tea from a nearby stall. By the...

-The Financial Express The one irrefutable lesson from MGNREGA, is that once introduced, there will be no going back India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. In terms of Gini coefficient, i.e., measure of income inequity, India ranks a dismal 135 out of 187 countries. This means that most of the prosperity that an increasingly economically liberalised India is seeing, belongs primarily to the top-income percentiles. One in...