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Dear Reader,
The crisis in Indian agriculture has been marked by declining productivity and profitability, climate dependency and fragmented holdings. This has led to widespread distress among farmers. In 2019, the government, under the PM-AASHA scheme, sought to cushion the farmers from the vagaries of fluctuating prices -- especially in pulses and oilseeds. It launched the Price Deficiency Payment System to compensate farmers who earned less than the government-fixed minimum support price (MSP).
However, The Reporters' Collective investigates and finds that the Scheme was flawed from the beginning. Serious design faults helped the trader manipulate the market at the farmer's cost, as a pilot scheme in Madhya Pradesh revealed. It also limited the compensation to only 25 per cent of the farmers' losses, excluded tenant farmers, and put an additional and undue financial burden on the states. The story asserts that the Centre went ahead with the Scheme despite warnings of its inefficacy from many, including from its policy think tank Niti Ayog.
In India, a significant proportion of the population resides in the economically backward states in the North, whereas employment and mobility are concentrated in the relatively advanced South. This 'North-South divide' has caused a migration of workers from the North to the South, which has raised hackles in the states below the Vindhyas.
However, The India Forum argues that this "resurgent regionalism" in the South against migrant workers from the North is misplaced. As the population in the South ages, and it impacts the availability of local workers, the Southern states, in fact, need to encourage and leverage the migrant workers from the North to sustain their economic growth and lead.
Since the "worst floods in a century", which took almost 500 lives and displaced over a million people, in 2018 in Kerala, the coastal zone of Ernakulam has experienced recurring tidal floods, worsened by coastal storms, affecting more than 700,000 residents of Paravoor mandal. The daily saltwater flooding, particularly in Ezhikkara, where homes are eroding and health issues are now rampant, there is fear that the residents will have to be evacuated and end up as climate refugees.
The Kerala Disaster Management Authority classifies these floods as 'regular', but given the severity and scale of the flooding and its particular impact on women and children, civil society organisations argue that it be designated a 'special disaster'. This is essential to ensure that not only is the flooding addressed on a war footing, but fair compensation is provided. TrueCopy Think reports from the Ernakulam coast.
The rulings of the Supreme Court of India in the recent past – over 11 orders over ten months -- have shown a broad and happy tendency, says Article 14, to make bail the default norm in India. This is especially palpable in cases of terrorism and money laundering – the categories whose provisions are most used by the state as a tool to weaponise incarceration without bail for years. However, the story also cautions that it may be premature to celebrate the change in stance as many – activists, academics, dissidents – are still in jail, despite the Court's zeal for bail.
For more such stories from the grantees this week, please read on.
Warmly,
Sunil Rajshekhar
IPSMF
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