-Livemint.com Crop insurance has failed to provide much-needed relief to farmers from destitution With one farmer committing suicide every half-an-hour, the number of farmers who have ended their lives as per official records in India is estimated at over 300,000 over the past two decades. These numbers do not include suicides by agricultural labourers, though they too are victims of the agrarian crisis. As each death affects at least the immediate family...

-The Hindu Business line Distressed farmers are demanding loan waivers, but that should not deflect focus from what needs to be done and undone to address the root cause of the agrarian crisis The farmers’ unrest across the country, and particularly across several BJP-ruled States, appears to have caught the central government by surprise. But it should really not have done so. Ever since candidate Narendra Modi in 2014 promised the farmers...

-TheWire.in The Indian farmer is not just a poor, helpless victim who deserves a waiver because he cannot pay. The root cause of the debt trap is that his income has not increased with rising expenditure due to state policies. As Punjab joins the list of states to declare farm loan waivers, the political scales are now heavily tilted in favour of this idea. The government of Telangana, followed by Andhra Pradesh,...

-GovernanceNow.com As farmers protests take centre stage across the country, Swaraj Party convenor explains the ecological, economic and existential crisis behind this unrest. * We have recently seen farmers from Tamil Nadu protesting in the national capital. Then Maharashtra farmers protested, deciding not to send their produce to cities. The agitation has now reached Madhya Pradesh, leading to killings. Why there is sudden farmers’ unrest in the country? I think we...

-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...