-Livemint.com Some perspectives on the issue seem to paper over the problem and get into comparisons There is much discourse on both the issue of agrarian distress and farmer suicides. However, there have been some arguments that seem to paper over the problem and get into comparisons—that the people who committed suicide just happened to be farmers; that they were not poor; that (as argued by Shamika Ravi of Brookings India) the...
More »SEARCH RESULT
2018 -- Year of Raging Joblessness -Subodh Varma
-Newsclick.in The tragedy of unemployment continues, complemented by a government that has no solution except to fiddle with data. If there was one defining promise by Narendra Modi in the run-up to the 2014 General Elections, it was that he would give one crore jobs every year. Nearly five years down the line, this is what promises to sink him and his government at the Centre. Far from fulfilling this promise, the Modi...
More »An outstanding alternative to farm loan waiver -Suman Layak
-The Economic Times The world is no stranger to farm debt crises like the one India is seeing today. Back in the 1980s, the Canadian parliament enacted a law to stop foreclosures on farm debt, after prices collapsed and interest rates jumped to as high as 24%. The law was in force for a dozen-odd years. It identified insolvent farmers, facilitated agreements between the borrowers and lenders, and helped some farmers move...
More »Kerala's alternative to farm loan waivers has lessons for India -Nidheesh MK
-Livemint.com Thanks to the debt relief commission, 11,354 Kerala farmers have benefited from a disbursement of over ?11 crore, and there are no farmer suicides in the state Ernakulam/ Bengaluru: Back in 2006, Kerala came face to face with an explosive situation. Ironically in a state dominated by Communist politicians, farming was dominated by export-oriented cash crops such as rubber and pepper, prices of which had plunged in the global market. It...
More »Ahead of 2019 polls, Centre readies big farm relief plan -Surojit Gupta
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is working on a plan to provide relief to farmers and is weighing options on a direct benefit transfer scheme for the distressed sector modelled on the Telangana system. Several rounds of discussions have been held and the view emerging within the government favours a limited direct benefit transfer scheme to help small and marginal farmers meet expenses for seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and labour. Sources...
More »