From debt traps and failed irrigation to climate shocks and political neglect, the agrarian crisis in Vidarbha reveals the deep structural failures haunting India’s farming economy. Every monsoon, as clouds gather over the dry plains of eastern Maharashtra, famers in the Vidarbha region look up with a mix of hope and despair. They are hopeful, as rain means life for their crops. Fear because, rain or no rain, the debts remain, prices fall, and the future remains uncertain. Vi

Maharashtra is wilting under the onslaught of successive heat waves. What was once dismissed as the predictable discomfort of an Indian summer has taken on a harsher character this summer. Cities like Pune, long celebrated for their temperate climate and breezy evenings, are now enduring heat conditions more reminiscent of the parched interiors of Vidarbha than the gentler Deccan plateau. Across districts, thermometers have climbed to unfamiliar highs while more tellingly, th