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A farmer returns homewards from his farm in a village in Haryana on March 5, 2021. The ongoing farmer protests at the Ghazipur border outside Delhi entered the 100th day on March 6. Contentious new agricultural reform laws have led tens of thousands of farmers to block key highways leading to the capital. Multiple rounds of talks have failed to produce any breakthrough on the farmers' key demand to revoke the legislation. Photo: AP

Food Security and Markets: Understanding the Protests over India’s Changing Social Contract with Farmers

Sukhpal Singh

For more than 100 days now India’s farmers have protested at the Shinghu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders outside the national capital, New Delhi. Earlier, Punjab’s farmers protested within their State for three months before moving to Delhi borders, against a set of laws that would change the nature of the relationship between the state and the ...

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Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) president Farooq Abdullah and vice-president Omar Abdullah at an election rally during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, in Srinagar, Monday, April 15, 2019. Photo: PTI/S. Irfan

Communalism, Statehood, Militancy, and the Multiple Layers of J&K Polls

Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal

Jammu and Kashmir has nearly as many phases of elections as it has Members of Parliament: the six constituencies in the northern ...

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A pond being deepened in Tamil Nadu, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). File photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam

"Income support schemes do not correct market failures": Economist

Puja Mehra

There is a proliferation of income support schemes on the Indian public policy landscape. Add to this two more by the principal ...

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Cutouts of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, DMK president MK Stalin and other leaders are seen at an election campaign rally, during the ongoing general elections, in Krishnagiri district, Friday, April 12, 2019. Photo: PTI/Shailendra Bhojak

Dravidian Dominance Faces Communal Challenges in Tamil Nadu

P. Ramajayam

Tamil Nadu heads for a watershed election when it goes to the polls on April 18, 2019. For the first time since independence the ...

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A voter reacts to a security personnel as he arrives at a polling station to cast his vote for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections, in Uri, north Kashmir, on April 11, 2019. Photo: PTI / S. Irfan

Poll Rhetoric in J&K Focuses on Threats to Special Status

David Devadas

Elections to the six Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) are taking place against the backdrop of the fall of the Mehbooba ...

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A para-motor flying in Vijayapura city on Monday, May 8, 2019, to encourage people to vote in coming Lok Sabha elections. Photo: Rajendra Singh Hajeri.

Sparring between Congress and JD (S) Gives Edge to BJP in Karnataka

S. Rajendran

For long a pocket borough of the Congress party Karnataka appears headed for a waveless election. The southern State, which goes ...

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Farmers during Kisan Mukti March on way to Parliament Street demanding special session of Parliament to implement Kisan Mukti Bill on Liberation from Debt and assured remunerative prices, in New Delhi on November 30, 2018. Photo: Sandeep Saxena/The Hindu

Rethinking India's Battles against Chronic Agrarian Distress

Sangeeta Shroff

In the run up to the 2019 general election leading political parties have promising payouts to the poor as part of the country's ...

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