Sikar, situated in Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, has a glorious history of peasant struggles. From 1920s through 1960s, peasants of Sikar fought successfully against the jagirdars. Sikar had an extremely oppressive jagirdari regime under the Raja of Sikar and peasants…
The policy shifts of the reform era have not been in favor of agriculture. Trade liberalisation, deregulation and a greater role for market forces have not benefited the farmer, who is trapped in a persisting crisis. It is time for…
The Modi government’s record in tacitly supporting the actions of a bunch of vigilante thugs who have been terrorizing the country, especially the Muslims and the dalits, in the guise of gaurakshaks, or opponents of love jihad, or “nationalists”, has…
The Modi government is completing three years in office amid much fanfare and propaganda about its achievements during this period. Aiding this propaganda is the advance estimate of GDP which projects a growth-rate of 7.11 percent for 2016-17, a shade…
In an acceleration of a trend towards mega-mergers in the agribusiness area, German pharma and agrochemicals major Bayer has announced an all-cash $66 billion deal to take over American seed major Monsanto. To clinch the deal, Bayer raised its initial…
The Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC), released by the Government of India on Friday the 3rd of July, paints a dismal picture of the economic conditions of the people in rural India. The data it has unearthed need to…
India’s beleaguered farmers are facing another threat to what is now a tenuous livelihood. That threat is the real prospect of a poor Southwest monsoon that would substantially reduce agricultural production over crop year (July to June) 2015-16. In its…
It is safe to say that Indian agriculture could not survive and would not have survived without the huge contribution of women workers. Their role has been absolutely pivotal – as farmers, as co-farmers, as unpaid workers on family farms,…
If Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan is to be believed, efforts to help Indian farmers by providing them with cheap(er) credit and relieving them of an unsustainable debt burden only harms them in the long run. In his…
After months of impasse, India finally agreed to relent on its opposition to allow progress on the post-Bali work programme of the World Trade Organization (WTO), after concluding a “bilateral agreement” with the United States. According to the terms of…
