-Outlook In the last two decades, more than 300,000 farmers have ended their lives. What can be done? Indian agriculture is important as it feeds an estimated 1.3 billion population of the country and is also burdened with the responsibility of providing livelihoods to 60 per cent of the people — 780 million people. No foreign country can produce this mammoth quantity of food and supply to India nor any sector...

-The Indian Express The number of arhtiya suicides may not be anywhere close to those by farmers, but they do suggest a certain trend. When prices of commodities, be it basmati rice or cotton, were good, farmers planted with gusto. The ongoing agrarian crisis has spread beyond farmers to consume even arhtiyas or grain commission agents, as a report in this newspaper from Punjab has shown. The number of arhtiya suicides may...

-The Indian Express In Marathwada’s worst-hit districts of Beed, Osmanabad and Latur, households now have an uncompromising priority list of expenses as an economy hit by years of near-total crop failure goes into a tailspin. Beed/ Osmanabad: About 65 kilometres from the cracked earth that was once their source of income, Mandakini Mujmule, in her forties, and her daughter Anita, 21, have spent 16 days in Beed city’s government hospital. Mandakini has...

-Hindustan Times Ludhiana: Punjab finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa may have announced several perks for the agriculture sector, including provident funds for farmers, financial relief to families in which farmers committed suicides and medical insurance as part of the Budget 2016-17 for the state but several agricultural experts and farmers have pointed out all perks are futile without crop insurance. They stressed that if crop of farmers are not insured by the...

-The Morung Express Chizami: “The Nagas are very hard working people,” said Swarupama continually on her first visit to Nagaland from Yedakupalli village in Medak district of Telangana State. She is a senior leader among the team of Dalit women farmers, videographers and coordinator here for the International Women’s Day and Biodiversity Festival observed by the North East Network in Chizami, Phek district, on March 8 and 9. The women are part...