-The Hindu Business Line Lingering distress in the sector may force the govt to think innovatively New Delhi: Agriculture sector, which suffered badly despite higher production in the last two years, may be a key focus area for the NDA government, when it presents its last full-fledged Union Budget before the 2019 general elections. Attending a function recently in the Capital, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unequivocally said that that the farm sector...

-The Hindu Many States have initiated ‘reforms’ of the public distribution system that are hurting millions of people India’s public distribution system (PDS) is in danger of being derailed in several States across the country. Recent disruptions of the PDS have taken different forms, from compulsory biometric authentication to so-called direct benefit transfer (DBT). The consequences are alarming, but tend to go unreported. Biometric mix-ups Jharkhand is a prime example of this problem. By...

-Down to Earth Income inequality makes agrarian crisis challenging; inequality is worse among farmers than the formal economy Economists Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty recently concluded after a long study that inequality is at its peak in India. It is embedded in popular conscience: “Top 1 per cent of earners captured 22 per cent of total income in the country.” Their study–covering consumption, government accounts and income tax data from 1922...

-The Hindu Agricultural policy should look to address the problem of severe price fluctuations There appears to be no end in sight to the cycle of boom and bust in the prices of agricultural goods. Over the last few weeks, across India the price of potatoes has fallen sharply after a year of bumper production. With the price of a kilogram of potato dropping as low as under a rupee in certain...

-Economic and Political Weekly   A representative phone survey to study explicit prejudice against women and Dalits in Delhi, Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan reveals widespread prejudice in several domains and discusses the consequences for women and Dalits, and society as a whole. The results suggest the need for a more robust public discourse and active approach to measuring and challenging prejudice and discrimination.   Please click here to read more.  ...