-Hindustan Times Fatehgarh Sahib: He owns four acres of land, farms 20 acres more on lease, and has a debt of Rs 10 lakh. Gurmukh Singh, 44, is one of better-to-do farmers of Pandrali, a quiet, well-groomed village in Fatehgarh Sahib district with several newly-built houses, smooth streets and girls on scooters. It’s a picture that could well be captioned ‘prosperous Punjab’. But the genteel façade hides the struggles of the...
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'Let them sell pakodas': Maharashtra farmers do not benefit from growing even high-priced tur now -Manas Roshan
-Scroll.in The minimum support price of Rs 5,050 per quintal barely covers the input cost, yet the going market rate is just about Rs. 4,500. Sudhakar Patil, 65, is a farmer in Bhayar Chincholi village in Maharashtra’s Osmanabad district. He cultivates a mix of tur, urad and moong on his 11-acre farm in the kharif season and chana and wheat in winter. In a good year, when there’s water in the...
More »A Dark Satire -Ajay Vir Jakhar
-The Indian Express Branding the farmer agitations ‘political’ betrays a lack of understanding There is no proof required that economists commenting on farmer issues have reached an affliction point. When the counsellor one seeks advice from is as callous as saying that the farmers’ agitation was political and justifies it by citing declining farmer suicides and rising farmer prosperity (‘Just why are farmers rioting?’ by Surjit Bhalla, IE, June 10), one can’t...
More »Yogendra Yadav, convenor of Swaraj Party, interviewed by Archana Mishra (GovernanceNow.com)
-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...
More »Burden of farming outweighs rewards: Is India staring at another Nandigram moment? - Rajesh Mahapatra
-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...
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