-DNA From May 20, 2014 to May 24, 2015 has seen as many as 1,306 farmers suicides, a 40% jump from last year. In the middle of the media blitzkrieg over the completion of a year in office of the Narendra Modi government comes the information that it is anything but 'achche din' in the farmer suicide country of Vidarbha. From May 20, 2014 to May 24, 2015 has seen as many...
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The Deepening Furrows -Ajay Jakhar
-The Indian Express Poorly designed policies are largely to blame for farm distress Successive governments have transformed an unevenly prosperous rural society to one which is evenly distressed. Small and marginal farmers now feel worse off than the landless. Most suicides have taken place in the families of such farmers, especially those with no source of non-farm income. For the sense of desperation that now pervades rural India, all political parties are...
More »India’s missing farm leaders
-Livemint.com Farm politics became defunct due to sustained increases in crop prices In a year of crisis for Indian agriculture all kinds of solutions have been proposed. Stock answers range from farm Loan Waivers to halting amendments to the law on land acquisition. Leaders such as Rahul Gandhi have even taken to well-publicized padyatras. There is something of a Who Killed Cock Robin quality to all this. What no one is...
More »Only 'bure din' for us, say farmers -Omar Rashid
-The Hindu Govt. accused of backtracking on promise of Loan Waiver Mumbai: Farmers in Maharashtra are using the phrase bure din (bad days) to describe their condition. Akshay Tale last spoke to his close friend Neelesh Walke at around 2.45 p.m. on December 30 last year. Neelesh, who faced a Rs. 2 lakh debt, seemed anxious but showed no signs that he was considering any extreme step. At around 4 p.m., Neelesh, barely 23,...
More »From plate to plough: Padyatras, politics, policies -Ashok Gulati
-The Indian Express Rahul Gandhi will help farmers more if he focuses on how policies are implemented On April 30, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi undertook a padyatra of about 15 km in the Vidarbha region to register his sympathy and concerns for farmers. Vidarbha has been reeling under agrarian distress for many years, and has also been an epicentre of farmer suicides. Cotton being one of the primary crops of this...
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