-The Indian Express The farmer organisations have been demanding minimum income guarantee scheme, implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report and waiver of farmers' debt. New Delhi: Demanding remunerative prices for their produce, implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations and farm loan waivers among other things, farmers across the country continued their agitation Saturday as part of a 10-day long nationwide strike. In the wake of the dwindling fresh supplies of farm produce in...

-The Indian Express A single national agriculture market, promised by the BJP in its 2014 manifesto, remains a pipe dream. Can the government reform the broken APMC structure in the last year of its term? In its 2014 Lok Sabha election manifesto, the BJP promised to evolve a single national agriculture market (NAM) in the country with a view to enable farmers to get a better price and consumers to pay a...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Three fathers who lost a child each to alleged medical negligence and a patients' rights group have asked the Union health ministry to establish new mechanisms to address complaints of negligence. The existing institutional mechanisms to protect patients has failed and broken down, their letter to minister J.P. Nadda and health officials on Saturday said. The parents and the rights group, the All India Drug Action Network, have sought...

If someone is a rural male, what occupation would he prefer? A rational person might say that depending on the highest prevailing daily wage rate in a particular occupation (which is subject to seasonal variation) vis-à-vis the rest, he will make his choice.   An exercise undertaken by the Inclusive Media for Change team based on the latest available month-wise wage data of rural men shows that there is a seasonal variation...

-Livemint.com India needs to defend policies that make agriculture remunerative and stand by its poor at this stage of development In an attempt to combat rural distress, the Union budget announced this year by finance minister Arun Jaitley promised a new deal to farmers—minimum support prices (MSP) that would be 150% of the cost of production. The government is expected to announce the first set of support prices under the new policy in...