Articles by Sucha Singh Gill

Are the ongoing debates on solutions to crop residue burning marred by policy confusion? While bio-compressed natural gas and ethanol producers want farmers to collect paddy straw from their farms to be supplied to plant locations, another lobby of machine sellers wants the straw to be processed in the fields itself. Would the success of one commercial proposition lead to the failure of the other?

The decision to rename the Dyal Singh Evening College in Delhi to Vande Mataram Mahavidyalaya is a most unfortunate and uncalled for development, and we condemn it.

A burgeoning gun culture in Punjab, aided by changes in the police administration that have made offi cers subordinate to full-time politicians, has led to meaningless violence breaking out every now and then. In the absence of mass mobilisation and welfare-oriented politics, this has furthered the growth of a politician-criminal nexus.

After a long lull, farmers in Punjab are once again mobilising over a range of issues, spurred by the need to change the situation that has been leading to the large number of suicides. Most importantly, the movement is seeing a broadbasing cutting across ideological barriers.

Prioritising rural health care in the state policy by allocating additional investments for sanitary infrastructure and medical personnel in rural areas is essential for redressing the growing disparity in health care facilities between rural and urban Punjab.