-Livemint.com Abject poverty, high levels of debt, and crop failures among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to a study commissioned by agriculture ministry New Delhi: Abject poverty, high levels of indebtedness, crop failures and pressure to repay loans are among the leading causes behind farmer suicides, according to the preliminary findings of a study commissioned by the Union agriculture ministry. The broad findings of the study conducted by the Institute for...

-TheWire.in The insurance coverage in 2015 was 22.3%, with a government expenditure of Rs 2,955 crore. But by spending 4.5x since, how does the government admit to a coverage of only 23%? Farmer suicides and agrarian distress have likely never been among the national public debates as they are right now. A group of Tamil Nadu farmers, whose protests in New Delhi were dubbed ‘bizarre’ but who were actually desperate for debate and...

-TheWire.in Most technocratic interventions introduced in MGNREGA appear to be designed to aid administrators rather than for actually helping workers. In his 2017-18 Budget speech, finance minister Arun Jaitley asserted with great conviction that the ruling dispensation’s “initiative to geo-tag all MGNREGA assets” to put them “in public domain has established greater transparency”. In 2016-17, the rural development ministry started an initiative called ‘GeoMGNREGA’, under which it was proposed that all assets created under...

-TelanganaToday.news Promotion of small farmer economy will help escape the six-decade-old crisis and boost the sector in State Agriculture in Telangana, particularly being carried out by small and marginal farmers, is poised for a rapid transition in the coming years. More so, after the historical announcement of a major policy on promotion of small farmer economy by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao at the recently-held plenary. The first full-scale Budget of 2015-16 addressed...

-The Indian Express A good, even if not record, wheat crop along with improved prices brings cheer after two not-so-good years. Dewas (Madhya Pradesh): Manohar Singh Sendhav cannot offhand recall the number of trips he has made to the Dewas mandi or to the shining steel silo at Durgapur, some 10 km away. Undaunted by the searing noon heat, this farmer from Chandakhedi village in Dewas district’s Sonkatch taluka watches his tractor driver...