By Jaideep Hardikar

Fifteen-year-old Deepak Bramhanwade was catapulted to the head of the family after his farmer father Devidas consumed pesticide and died. Devidas had debts to repay and was not eligible for the Centre’s loan waiver scheme because he owned just half an acre more than the five-acre ceiling. Now his young son must bear all the responsibilities he was unable to cope with More...

By Jaideep Hardikar

“I’ll prove my father wasn’t wrong when he took up farming, I’ll bring my family out of debt,” says Bhushan, who took over the family farm at barely 13 years of age when his father committed suicide in 2003. This year, he has begun doing the rounds of the banks for credit More...

By Jaideep Hardikar

Ganesh Kale was just eight when his father committed suicide. Now 11, Ganesh is one of a growing tribe of Vidarbha’s baccha-kisans (child farmers) who are tilling their fields, taking their crops to market, and grappling with their family’s finances and needs More...

By Jaideep Hardikar

With 40,000 farmer suicides in Maharashtra between 1995 and 2007, there are thousands of households where children have been forced out of school and into the fields to shoulder the family burden. Vidarbha is one of the worst-affected regions. This series of articles by Jaideep Hardikar reports on these children who have inherited debt and distress More...