-The Hindu With unseasonal rain laying waste vast areas under the rabi crop in north India earlier this year and the threat of a deficient monsoon looming, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme could act as a real salve for distressed farm workers and labourers. The World Bank’s brief statement on the scheme on Tuesday to this effect, as part of its latest India Development Update, concurs with recent...

-IANS A resurgent Rahul Gandhi and the suicide of a farmer at an AAP rally in the capital seem to have made the NDA government re-think its strategy on the land acquisition bill and put it on the backburner - at least for now. Desperately trying to fight the "anti-farmer" tag, the government, which went into a huddle soon after a farmer committed suicide at the April 22 rally of Delhi chief...

-The Indian Express As the toll of human misery and suicide mounts, official estimates of farm losses due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms in March remain controversial, with hasty downward revision. Since these estimates are largely notional, without validation from field visits, such revision smacks of deliberate fiddling. On March 24, the agriculture ministry reported that crops on 18 million hectares — about 30 per cent of the rabi crops —...

-IPS News BELLARY, India: HuligeAmma, a Dalit woman in her mid-forties, bends over a sewing machine, carefully running the needle over the hem of a shirt. Sitting nearby is Roopa, her 22-year-old daughter, who reads an amusing message on her cell phone and laughs heartily. The pair leads a simple yet contented life – they subsist on half a dollar a day, stitch their own clothes and participate in schemes to educate...

-The Tribune Modern farming techniques beyond the grasp of small & medium farmers Analyses of agrarian troubles in India are full of tragedy. The tragedy lies in two parts. In the first part is the sad story of a farmer who was distressed enough to commit suicide. In the second part is the outrageous behaviour of many bystanders who, in the name of being well-wishers of farmers, use the funeral fires not...