-Economic and Political Weekly     Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...

-PTI Says some of the immediate measures are implementing APMC Act in all states Stating agriculture has the potential to take India's growth to 8% and create millions of jobs in rural areas, Assocham has suggested a slew of measures to the Government in this regard. It has suggested the NDA government to adopt an enabling policy environment, modern technology and boost supply-chain efficiency to address food inflation, encourage investment-led growth and ensure...

-The Hindu   Adilabad (Andhra Pradesh): Turmeric sowing has begun in Adilabad, but farmers are anxious about the price which their produce will attract eventually. "The market trend is not healthy so far as the price of turmeric is concerned and this could add to the problems of farmers, who are already reeling under the effect of the heavy loss they suffered owing to the dismally low price last season," says K. Narasimham...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: Amid protests over a sharp hike in fares and criticism of political parties, the government on Saturday strongly defended the increase in passenger fares, including for short-distance travel, arguing the revision was long overdue as the last hike took place around 11 years ago and a heavy subsidy burden was "unsustainable" in the wake of soaring costs. While passengers travelling by sub-urban and short-haul trains account...

-The Citizen.in This piece is a rejoinder to an article by D K Joshi, which appeared in ‘The Indian Express' on June 4, 2014. The main arguments made by the author are neither new nor unique. Many neoliberal economists, including some occupying crucial policy-making positions have been making arguments which propose dilution of Minimum Support Price (MSP) policies to take care of excess food stocks with the government and also control...