Sainath on Rural India
Agriculture in India                    

2007

Aug 24: Bt brinjal trials with conditions (Hindustan Times, DNA)
Aug 20: GEAC's poor regulatory record (Counter Currents)
Jul 16: Crop production expected to rise by 2.6%, foodgrains 0.9% (The Hindu)
Jul 14: Nagpur HC takes serious note of Vidarbha widow relief check (Indian Muslims News and Information)
Jun 21: GEAC approval of research trials of GM rice, okra, corn, eggplant (Financial Express, Fibre2Fashion)
Jun 03: To gain social acceptance (of new technology) is an art (Financial Express)
May 29: The politics of agriculture: farmers and SEZs (Livemint)
May 13: Escape from Punjab (Devinder Sharma, Daily Ittefaq)
May 11: Need remedial measures to prevent farmers' suicides (Kalinga Times)
Mar 17: Monsanto to develop drought resistance crops (Financial Express)
Jan 02: Farmers seek better deal in new year (Financial Express)

2006
Dec 09: Indian agriculture in crisis: Utsa Patnaik (The Hindu)
Dec 07: Big GM seeds buccaneers vs The people of India (the peoplesvoice.org)
Dec 05: Biotech crops are boon (TOI: Mahyco rep comment on Sahai article)
Dec 04: Make changes in Seed bill, urge farmers (Financial Express)
Dec 04: National biosafety framework necessary (editorial, Financial Express)
Dec 03: Indians consume less cereals, more mile, vegetables, fruit

Nov 16: Editorial on GM rice destruction [Financial Express]
Nov 11: TN farmers destroy GE rice (NDTV)(Down to earth)
Nov 09: 'If farmers' draft gets converted into policy, they will be seen limping out of fields, towards the cities' [Express]
Nov 09: No way to protest (Business Standard, about burning of GM rice)
Nov 06: Need for monitoring mechanism at village-level and up

Oct 31: PAU convocation: Chidambaram
Oct 31: Haryana farmers oppose GM food crops (NDTV)
Oct 30: Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) torches GM rice test field in Karnal
Oct 01: Transgenic crops in the pipeline: Pawar

Sep 30: All in a day: six farmers commit suicide
Sep 30: TNAU plans field trial of transgenic version of Bt Brinjal
Sep 29: Agricultural Research system to be strengthened: Pawar
Sep 23: SC asks GEAC to include independent expert to assess impacts on non-GM before approval of GM seed trials [here and here]
Sep 21: Media urged to help spread information on farm technology

Aug 31: US regulations of GE foods a bad model (Opinion: Sujatha Byravan, The Hindu)
Aug 27: US raises concerns about India's initiative on labelling GM foods-WTO(Financial Express)
Aug 24: Minimum support price for paddy raised (Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices).
Aug 21: Farmer suicides, high inputs, organic farming
Aug 20: Viewpoints on GM crops
Aug 14: Pesticide, Coca Cola
Aug 11: PAU responsible for agrarian crisis in state(Opinion: Devinder Sharma, Indian Express)
Aug 05: Spurious pesticides dominate market
Aug 04: Govt sets up committee on GM food NDTV

Jul 16: Organic farming the only technology within farmer's control
Jul 11: Farmers call to ban GM food crop field trials
Jul 09: Kisan Sabha plans intense struggles
Jul 09: Stop Bt Brinjal trials
Jul 05: Comments on Bt brinjal trial until July 15

Jun 29: Plea to declare Orissa GM-free
Jun 28: AP urged to reject Bt brinjal
Jun 21: Protecting indigenous varieties (fingerprinting)
Jun 25: Mahyco claims Bt brinjal patent rights: The seed company, Mahyco has filed for patents rights over its event specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) involved in the process of developing Bt brinjal. Bt gene has been isolated and developed by the US seed multinational, Monsanto.
Jun 20: Bharatiya Kisan Union to oppose Bt brinjal in Punjab
Jun 16: Concerns on Bt brinjal to be addressed: Pawar
Jun 16: Mahyco Bt brinjal stirs controversy
Jun 05: Bt brinjal research
Jun:    Greenpeace protest
Jun 02: 'Event based' clearance for GM crops

May 27: Monsanto Bt brinjal for large scale trials; GM Baingan ka bharta
May 14: Wheat and Bt cotton policy
May 12: Policy on GM food imports flawed

Apr 20: Mali: NO to Bt cotton
Apr 19: Despair takes toll on Indian farmers
Apr 17: Labelling of GMO
Apr 08: Curbs on import of food and feed made from GM seeds
Apr 04: Government to give GM agri-commodities a boost

Mar 31: Agrarian crisis in Punjab
Mar 28: NGOs expose Punjab CM's newfound love for organic farming 
Mar 26: Pushing farmers out of farming ..on the Indo-US agreement (Devinder Sharma, Zmag.org)
Mar 23: Punjab State Policy on Organic Farming  
Mar 21: lndo-US farm research deal raises concerns. 
Mar 20: Opening Indian Agriculture to the US (Central Chronicle, Bhopal, MP)
Mar 16: A billion reasons ..for Indo-US Agriculture treaty and why not to scuttle nuclear pact (Kleckner, Truth about Trade and Technology, Des Moines, Iowa, USA)
Mar 09: Bush, Biotech can transform India's countryside (Andy Mukherjee, Agbioview & Bloomberg, in Truth about Trade and Technology)
Mar 01: Eco-crisis in Punjab and governmental toxicity

Feb 26: Indo-US Agriculture Initiative: Handing Indian Agriculture to Monsantos(Prabir Purkayastha, People's Democracy)
Feb 21: Second Green Revolution: Recipe for farmers' genocide
Feb 14: Indo-US MoU (Central Chromicle)
Feb 8:..queries on GM foods and BT cotton in seminar in EU

Jan 21: Biotech in India: PM Bhargava
Jan 18: Biotech revolution losing steam  (Inter Press Service News Agency)
Jan 17: Vitamin-enriched rice (South-Asian Biosafety Programme, USAID)
Jan 12: Global growth of transgenics (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, ISAAA)
Jan 11: GM crop area continues to soar (Global)

2005

Dec 20: Mahyco Bt brinjal undergoing large-scale trials
Dec 08: Law for labelling of GM foods soon
Nov 18: India's draft biotech policy: Farmers consulted 
Nov 16: Khargaon's trees: Rural India changing
Nov 15: GM brinjals in Indian kitchens soon
Nov 11: Gene contamination may affect organic exports

2004

Jul 26: ICMR Wants Overhaul Of GM Foods Regulation
May 03: Experts Flay Swaminathan Panel Recommendations On GM Crops
Apr 08: KC Pant Pitches For Asian Collective Approach On GM Food
Mar 15: ICAR Moots Two Arms For Transgenics Regulator
Feb 11: What should be the future orientation of Indian agriculture: towards organic farming or transgenic crops cultivation.

2003

Oct 22: The Regulator’s Agenda: Benefit from global GM best practices
May 23: GEAC threatens future of GM technology
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P. Sainath on rural India (The Hindu)


Mar 05, 2007. The budget. In that the trend of falling state investment in sector after sector continues, this budget does not break with neo-liberalism. India is still on a path damaging and dangerous to the poor.
Jan 27, 2007. Suicide notes. Even as the suicides in Vidharbha go on relentlessly, a trend has strengthened these past months. More and more farmers are blaming the Government and even talking directly in their suicide notes to Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Jan 24, 2007: Reverse commuting. Hundreds of women in Maharashtra's Gondia district travel from small towns to the villages to earn a daily wage.
Dec 13, 2006. No sugar-coated pills for cotton farmers.  This time three years ago, there were around 300 cotton procurement centres at work in Maharashtra. This year that number is 56. The farmers are being pushed towards private traders. And much lower prices.
Dec 8, 2006. The fear of democracy.   The 50th death anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is a time to remember that the larger society ignores or distorts the Dalits' struggle for their rights at its own risk.
Nov 25, 2006. A fading cotton bumper crop.   Claims of a cotton bumper crop in Maharashtra have faded. Farmers feel such talk was meant to push prices down further. Procurement delays could also force many to sell in distress to private buyers.
Nov 23, 2006. Till the cows come home.  The decision to give quality cows to poor farmers in Vidharbha has only harmed the beneficiaries.
Nov 22, 2006. It's official: distress up, suicides appalling.   The Maharashtra Government's findings now show us that over 75 per cent of all farm households in the Vidharbha region are in distress. The data also show that farm suicides were 25 times higher this year than in 2001. But conscious jugglery works to play down the numbers.
Nov 6, 2006. Shangri-la and sub-Saharan Africa.  The crass inequality on display in our schools runs across all spheres of India's brave new world. The schools only mirror this larger reality.
Sep 24, 2006. Mortgages are out, land grab is in. Farmers weighed down by debt are now falling prey to land grab by an array of predators that includestalatisand school teachers. A "proper" deed of sale is the preferred method.

Aug 11, 2006. A 'final' note on credit. The announcement of fresh crop loans came late in the sowing season for Vidharbha. And, say the suicide notes of farmers, the talk at the top has not been matched by credit at the bottom. Meanwhile, the rain is adding to the devastation.
Aug 09, 2006.  Peasant life. After 15 years of a battering from hostile policies and governments, the world of the peasant has turned highly fragile. But the onus of changing is on the farmer. Not on those driving a cruel process and system.
Jul 14, 2006. Politics of packages & the packaging of politics.   Had there been a waiver of debt of up to just Rs.25,000, more than 80 per cent of Vidharbha's farmers would no longer have owed the banks money.
Jun 28, 2006. How Mumbai came to discover Vidharbha.  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's upcoming visit to Vidharbha has had an impact even before he's reached the place. It would, however, be a limited and transient impact if he does not see through the charade.
Jun 12, 2006. Vidharbha: slowing down the suicides.   There are several immediate steps both the Centre and the Maharashtra Government could take to ease the situation in Vidharbha. These would not solve the long-term crisis, but would surely slow down the farm suicides that continue to rise. There were almost 80 in May. And 540 since last June.
May 29, 2006. Vidharbha: failure of banks.  The failure of the banks has seen new kinds of creditors emerge in Vidharbha. Some of these now come in from neighbouring States — with a `home delivery system' of loans. Many farmers owe money to banks, cooperative societies, input dealers, private lenders, close relatives — and `anna.' Life is about borrowing from one lender to pay off another.
May 22, 2006. Three weddings and a funeral.   As farm suicides in Vidharbha cross the 500-mark in under a year, families are holding funerals and weddings at the same time. Sometimes, on the same day. In moving shows of solidarity, very poor villagers are pitching in with money and labour to help conduct the marriages and funerals of down-and-out neighbours.
May 03, 2006. The development debate.  India's development debate has actually regressed this past decade. A single, homogenised view of development is being shoved down from above.
Apr 28, 2006. Water deals. Questions are now being asked about how the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Bill was passed.
Apr 25, 2006. Election time. In the long-time UDF bastion of Wayanad, the agrarian crisis has transformed things. All have been affected.
Apr  8, 2006. Thirst for profit. The corporate hijack of water is on and if the current trend continues, India's water sources will be in private hands before long.
Apr 1, 2006.  Where India shining meets great depression.  In the village, we demolish their lives, in the city their homes. The smug indifference of the elite is matched by the governments they do not vote in, but control.
Mar 22, 2006. Privatisation of water. Converting water to a commercial good to be sold for profit invites disaster. Most of all for poor people whose already pathetic access to water will shrink swiftly.
Mar 16, 2006. AP: 'helplines'.  Those turning to the Government `helpline' in Mahbubnagar, Andhra Pradesh, learn the hard way what happens when the little farmer of the countryside runs into the large apparatus of the state.
Feb 17, 2006. Vidharbha: the 'forced privatization' of cotton.   Disputes over output do not hide the trouble Maharashtra's cotton economy is in. Small farmers face another year of huge losses. The role of nature is very minor compared to conscious policy measures that have undermined the farmer and world cotton prices.
Jan 04, 2006. Public-Private health care. There's a clamour for `public-private' partnerships in the sphere of Indian health care. But there is very little that is public left in the sector.

Oct 28, 2005. Vidharbha: awaiting a deadly harvest.  In the three days the National Commission on Farmers team toured Vidharbha, there were six suicides. In Panderkauda, the body of the latest farmer to take his life entered that town's hospital the same day the team arrived there for a meeting on farmer distress.
Oct 14, 2005. The great Indian laughter challenge. If you decide that 75 per cent of the country does not make news, you're shrinking your potential zone of coverage. And if you decree that only a small section of the other 25 per cent does, you've painted yourself into a corner.
Sep 27, 2005.  The riots and wrongs of caste. The Bhagwan Dattamandirin Belkhed, Akola, was built by Dalits when they were still Hindus. It was ostensibly the focus of the fiery violence there earlier this month. The real reasons? Caste, the decline of organised Dalit politics, the crisis in agriculture, and wage conflicts — all played a role.
Sep 24, 2005: Mortgages are out, land grab is in. Farmers weighed down by debt are now falling prey to land grab by an array of predators that includestalatisand school teachers. A "proper" deed of sale is the preferred method
Sep 20, 2005: Chor Bt or Bt Chor?. Fake and costly inputs have placed lakhs of farmers in grave danger. Further, despair has led many to embrace costly Bt cotton as some kind of magic bullet. Meanwhile, Bt cotton has not only been attacked by other pests, it's been struck by the bollworm itself. For many, the results could be deadly.
Sep 17, 2005: Chit funds and loan lotteries. Many farmers deep in debt are trying to find a way out through playingbhishi(chit funds). Denied bank loans and desperate for credit to run their farms and for other needs, they take huge risks inbhishi. The results are usually tragic.
Sep 15 2005: The Farmer and Ganesh Utsav. The Ganesh festival is the most important event in Maharashtra. This season, farm distress has hit theutsavbadly in Vidharbha. Very few have money to spend. Meanwhile, farmers' suicides there are going up. There has been one almost every 36 hours this year.
July 1, 2005: Health as someone else's wealth. Many in Vidharbha, like millions elsewhere, have simply stopped seeking medical help for their ailments. They just cannot afford it. Some farmers have mortgaged land to pay health bills.
Jun 30, 2005: As you sow, so shall you weep. With the rains finally here, spurious seeds and other fake inputs introduce a deadly new element in the survival struggle of the Vidharbha farmer. Fake seeds from Andhra Pradesh have come in on a large scale.
Jun 28, 2005: Suicides in Vidharbha not linked to power issues. Despite a strongly held belief to the contrary, Maharashtra's farmers have never demanded free power. And the suicides in Vidharbha were certainly not linked to this issue.
Jun 25, 2005: Whose suicide is it, anyway?. In Yavatmal district alone, there's been an eight-fold increase in farmers' suicides in just four years. Yet, thanks to a flawed counting process, even that is a huge under-estimate.
Jun 23, 2005: Rural Russian roulette in Vidharbha. For Vidharbha's farmers, the most important question is: when to sow?
Jun 22, 2005: No rain, but "snow" and water parks. Water-starved Vidharbha has a growing number of water parks and amusement centres.
Apr 30, 2005: The map and the big bang. Privatisation of water will destroy countless small farmers. It will hand over agriculture to the rich and corporations.
Apr 28, 2005: Water: how the deal was done. Questions are now being asked about how the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Bill was passed.
Apr 27, 2005: Maharashtra's coming water wars. A new law could put irrigation beyond the reach of most farmers in Vidharbha.