Farmers demand total debt waiver, remunerative crop prices

The farmers who have been mobilised from various parts of the country are from grassroots organisations and also front associations of the CPI (M) and others

V Vinkudothu looks like a college student. Bespectacled, she could easily pass for a youngster who had come to watch the farmers’ rally organised by a conglomeration of around 180 organisations in the capital’s Parliament Street.

Clutching the portrait of a middle-aged man, Vinkudothu strains her voice amid the din, describing how a mix of loans from moneylenders and banks has put her family in a vicious cycle of debt, which took her father’s life.

He committed suicide in October last year after failing to repay a loan of Rs 13 lakh taken from local moneylenders and banks after both the paddy