-Down to Earth DTE visited village Dhamna in Uttar Pradesh’s Jalaun district to see how life in rural India is being sustained by the biggest employment guarantee scheme in the world People don’t eat paani poori during a pandemic. Out-of-business garment shops don’t employ tailors or hire security guards. It’s been five months since the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the subsequent countrywide lockdown stripped migrant labourers of their livelihood, leading to...

-Newsclick.in At least 45 farmers have killed themselves since the lockdown began, said farmers’ body Rythu Swarajya Vedika. About 70% of farmers who committed suicides during the lockdown period in the last two months are tenant farmers cultivating crops in 5 to 20 acres of agricultural land, a study conducted by Telugu daily Eenadu has revealed. Besides difficulties related to crop procurement, the study found that loss of crops, financial distress related...

-Frontline.in The draft Bill on land leasing in Punjab is aimed at promoting the interests of agribusiness corporations. It will have devastating consequences for peasants in the State. THERE is no doubt that agricultural land leasing laws in India should be amended to make land leasing lawful and easier. The NITI Aayog Report (2016) proposed, on the grounds of efficiency and equity, a formal model law on leasing (Model Agricultural Land Leasing...

-The Indian Express With small land-holdings, hilly terrains, water scarcity and parched lands, farming is neither profitable nor a dependable source of income in many villages. Dahod: The ardous journey is not just what migrant labourers, who are returning in thousands from cities to their villages amid an unprecedented nation wide lockdown in view of the coronavirus pandemic, are facing. Deeper economic uncertainties stare at many of them back in their villages. Sukhlal...

-Vikalp.ind.in The NDA government brought a new scheme the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) that became operational from 1st December 2018. It aimed to provide small and marginal farmers (SMFs) financial assistance to procure various inputs to ‘ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields’. It also aimed to protect these farmers from middlemen and moneylenders. SMFs were defined as the farmer families who collectively own cultivable land upto 2 hectares....