-Hindustan Times Interventions such as Loan waivers or MSP revisions can at best offer temporary succour. At worst, they deflect attention from the real issues behind the crisis that has been in the making for long On March 14, 2007, when 14 farmers died in a clash between villagers and police forces in Nandigram of West Bengal over acquisition of land for an industrial project, few had imagined it would mark a...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Is India faced with a 3.1 lakh crore farm-Loan waiver? And will it help?
-IANS As demands for farm-Loan waivers grow across Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka -- after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra wrote off loans worth Rs 36,359 crore and Rs 30,000 crore, respectively -- India faces a cumulative Loan waiver of Rs 3.1 lakh crore, or 2.6 per cent of its GDP in 2016-17. A waiver of this scale could pay for the 2017 rural roads budget 16 times over...
More »Farmers block highways in Haryana, Rajasthan demanding Loan waiver -Harpreet Bajwa
-The New Indian Express CHANDIGARH: Farmers in Haryana and Rajasthan blocked highways in Haryana and Rajasthan as part of a nation-wide protest against the death of five farmers at Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh allegedly in police firing. A group of 62 farmers’ unions had announced that it will block traffic for three hours on all national highways across the country on Friday. In Haryana, major highways of the state, including National Highway 1...
More »Political economy structures perpetuate myopic understanding of agriculture sector -Nirvikar Singh
-The Financial Express A half-dozen years ago, I participated in a conference on water resource challenges in India. I remember Upmanu Lall, professor at Columbia University, graphically and bluntly making the point that Punjab’s water table was not far from collapse. This has been known for years, and there have been feeble efforts to deal with the problem, but they have been far short of what is needed. My own understanding...
More »Waiving farm loans is not only bad for the economy but also detrimental to interests of the farmer -Ram Singh
-The Economic Times blog Farmers, from Punjab in the north to Tamil Nadu in the south, have started agitations demanding farm loans be waived. The Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra governments have already considered it politically expedient to write them off. Some other states may follow the suit. However, such decisions are as misguided as they are misleading. Nonetheless, it will be a mistake to treat the agitations as a domino effect of...
More »