The Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round), which was released recently, informs one about farm households' income in the crop year 2018-19 and indebtedness in 2019 (as on the date of survey), among other things. Prior to the recent report, Land and Livestock Holding Surveys (LHS) and Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of Agricultural Households used to be...

-The Hindu Amid religious polarisation, agrarian issues still resonate with the community ALIGARH/ HATHRAS: As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faces the Jat challenge in western Uttar Pradesh, the message from the ground in Aligarh and Hathras districts is mixed. While there are many who still swear by the ruling party for providing suraksha, bijli aur sadak (safety, electricity and roads), there are others who feel the party has let down a vote...

-Frontline.thehindu.com The RBI’s proposal to loosen regulations for private lenders in the microfinance space will have disastrous consequences for the poor, especially women in rural areas. Microfinance, a category of financial services aimed at serving people from low-income households who lack access to conventional banking credit and services, was originally designed by international finance capital institutions such as the World Bank as an alternative to providing direct concessional credit to the poor—which...

The recently released quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data broadly confirms the dip in employment and jobs during the countrywide lockdown period, followed by a certain degree of recovery in the post-lockdown months last year as have been indicated by various survey-based studies and research papers. The quarterly bulletin on PLFS provides data on key employment and unemployment indicators i.e. Unemployment Rate (UR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Labour...

-National Herald Of 10.5 crore farmers covered under PM-Kisan, only 2.18 crore farmers received Kisan Credit Card. This means most small, marginal and landless farmers continued to struggle throughout the pandemic During the period of severe economic crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic, only 20 per cent of farmers under PM- Kisan have had access to formal credit. Of the 10.5 crore farmers covered under PM-Kisan, only 2.18 crore farmers have been issued...