-The Indian Express To address farmers' woes, we need a multi-pronged strategy of income support, Government investment, and institutional innovations, and not a one-size-fits-all approach. The two main policy interventions repeatedly discussed in recent months to tackle farmer distress — loan waivers and minimum support prices (MSP) — treat all farmers (large/small, male/female) alike. But farmers are heterogeneous. They differ especially by income, land owned and gender. And farmer dissatisfaction is...

-The Indian Express According to the annual report of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), as much as Rs 11,905.89 crore was collected by 11 private sector insurers as premium, but they faced insurance claims of only Rs 8,831.78 crore. Mumbai: ELEVEN private insurers are set to register profits of over Rs 3,000 crore cumulatively from crop insurance business for the year-ending March 2018 as against the Rs...

-The Indian Express The existing MSP-based procurement system is fiscally unsustainable. The time has come to consider market intelligence-based regulation of crop production Farmers are always in distress when prices of their produce are subdued. The response of Governments, obviously prompted by political pressures, has been to sharply hike minimum support prices (MSP) of crops or declare loan waivers. Thus, the current Government at the Centre has significantly raised the MSPs of...

-The Hindu Skill India needs a sharp realignment if it is to meaningfully transform people’s life chances In 2013, India’s skill agenda got a push when the Government introduced the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF). This organises all qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude, just like classes in general academic education. For instance, level 1 corresponds to Class 9 (because vocational education is only supposed to...

-The Economic Times The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, passed earlier this month in the Lok Sabha, has created a furore across Assam and other states across India. In Assam, a key coalition partner of the ruling BJP, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), quit the state Government, accusing the Centre of being anti-Assam. Anti-Delhi rage is not new, whether for AGP or other regional parties in Assam. It’s been part of the political landscape from...