Budget 2018: Time's running out for Modi to shore up rural voters' support

Rising discontent in rural areas and unrest among farmers is pressuring Modi to spend more on the countryside

Normally a field of lush green wheat stalks would lift Kishan Singh’s spirits. Yet weak prices mean even a good crop this year may not stop debt collectors from kicking him off his land in northern India.

More than 60 people in Dhamaka, a village of about 230 families some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from India’s capital New Delhi, have received notices threatening to auction their fields. Singh urgently wants Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to provide debt relief, better prices for his crops and jobs for his sons when it unveils the annual fiscal budget on Feb.