-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Raising farm income could well be the agenda for 2019 general elections and well aware of this is the Narendra Modi government, which is leaving no stone unturned to lure this vote bank. Navigating this agenda for the government is Radha Mohan Singh, Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. Aware of the challenges of the price sensitive market, Singh said, “agriculture markets cannot be...

-Firstpost.com Chandigarh: With the planting of the new paddy crop underway in Punjab, Balour Singh of Sangrur district's Channa village is worried about the hourly fee of Rs 150 he needs to pay his neighbour for supplying water to his fields. Being a marginal farmer, Singh doesn't own a borewell and has to depend on others for water, which is something his paddy crop needs in plenty. But water isn't Balour Singh's...

-Firstpost.com Chandigarh: Two years ago, Charan Singh's tubewell ran dry just before the paddy-sowing season could start. The rice farmer, who cultivates four acres of land in the Mansa district of Punjab, had been pumping water from 45 feet below the surface. Now he had to dig another, deeper well. Like Charan Singh, 36, thousands of farmers across Punjab are astonished at the speed at which groundwater, their principal source of water...

-Scroll.in Untouchability was outlawed in 1950, but discrimination and segregation of the scheduled caste remains pervasive. Musahars, a Scheduled Caste that sections of Hindu society deem untouchable, are still being denied government entitlements such as state pensions and housing. The discrimination is blatant when it comes to accessing government healthcare in Badagaon administrative block of Varanasi district in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous province. The scourge of discrimination is so pervasive that...

-The New Indian Express Something remarkable happened when the farmers came marching to Mumbai recently. Instead of greeting them with hostility, Mumbaikars welcomed them with affection, food and water. This change in attitude was triggered by the farmers’ extraordinary discipline and their efforts to ensure minimal disruption to the Mumbaikars’ routines. Even hard-boiled journalists acknowledged, for a brief moment, urbanites had realised  our farmers and adivasis were indeed facing difficult times. The...