-TheWire.in Data from the NCRB on farmers' suicides, when compared with data collected from the ground by the Punjab Agricultural University, shows a severe undercounting of the phenomenon in the country. While answering a question from MP Suresh Danorka about the determinants and distribution of farmers’ suicides, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar did not recognise the extensive study done by the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana (PAU), sponsored by the government of Punjab. The...

Door-to-door and village-to-village surveys carried out by researchers of the Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana detected a total of 9,291 suicides that were committed by farmers in six districts of Punjab during the period from 2000 to 2018. Situated in the Malwa region of Punjab, which is known for cotton farming and the prevalence of cancer among its population, Sangrur (2,506) witnessed the highest number of...

-Newsclick.in Through “nationalised banks-NBFC” deals, the Modi government is trying to achieve what the three farm laws could not achieve. In colonial times, the Peasantry had to borrow from private moneylenders. According to Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee reports, these moneylenders in turn borrowed from commercial banks. But while disbursing credit to the peasants and charging exorbitant interest rates, the money lenders at least bore the whole of the lender’s risk. The banks...

-The Tribune A farmer ends his life every 30 minutes in India. There are some who don’t end up in this pile of statistics and are saved through timely action of family and friends. Ramrao Panchleniwar, a cotton grower in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, is one such survivor. He wished to drown his financial worries in two bottles of insecticide in 2014. In this book titled after him, Ramrao’s life and near-death...

-Countercurrents.org Real life has a way of surprising theory. One of the most intensely discussed theoretical questions on the Left has been how to bring agricultural labourers and peasants, including well-to-do peasants, together in a common struggle against landlord domination in India’s countryside. Numerous Marxist gatherings have for years discussed the contradiction between peasants and labourers holding up a decisive resolution of the contradiction between the landlords and the rest of...