-Livemint.com Forgiving farm loans is no solution. The data shows there’s a far more fundamental problem—most agricultural households are unable to keep body and soul together. There’s nothing new about rural distress. Nor is it surprising. If the income of almost 70% of farm households is less than their consumption expenditure, according to the government’s own data, then it’s obvious they’ll be “distressed”. Yet that’s the inescapable conclusion from the National Sample...

-Livemint.com The earnings of an average farm household in Madhya Pradesh remains among the lowest India, although farmers have gained from rapid agricultural growth Mumbai: Protests by farmers across India amid bumper harvests have surprised many. The biggest source of surprise has been one of the hotspots of the protests, Madhya Pradesh (MP), a state that has posted record agricultural growth over the past several years. A Mint analysis shows that although farmers...

-Livemint.com Farm loan waivers have been announced in Maharashtra and promised by PM Narendra Modi in Uttar Pradesh, then why should Haryana, another BJP state, be left behind, questions a farmer Kurukshetra/ New Delhi: Next to a sprawling mango orchard, a four-hour drive from the capital, birds peck on worms emerging from rotting potatoes heaped by the wayside. The shade of giant mango trees offers relief from the heat of this hot...

-Firstpost.com After Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh has now been rocked by farmer unrest. At least six farmers were killed and eight others were critically injured on Tuesday when the police resorted to firing to subdue the protesting farmers in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh. In both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the farmers’ demands are almost similar: they want complete farm loan waiver as a short-term palliative and secondly, institutionalised mechanism for getting better prices...

-The Economic Times blog Finance minister Arun Jaitley was correct when he stated in April that constitutional constraints do not empower his government to tax agricultural income, implying that he is not constrained from amending the Income-Tax Act. B R Ambedkar, in framing the Constitution, was vehemently critical of British land revenue system, the foundation for which was laid during the Mughal period, and strengthened by the East India Company, which...