-The Hindu Business Line Most States have not amended APMC Acts; existing mandis lack infrastructure The eNAM portal, launched by the Centre in April 2016, has 45.4 lakh farmers and 417 mandis across the country registered with it. This number is disappointing, given that there are more than 13 crore farmers in India. eNAM, which was envisioned as a unified national electronics agriculture market, faces multiple hurdles. To implement it, each State has to first...

-The Indian Express Government has an opportunity to enhance use of social audit to monitor schemes In contrast to its rhetoric, the current government’s record on transparency, accountability, and citizen participation has been uninspiring. Even essential laws such as the Lok Pal and the Whistle Blower Protection Act are yet to be operationalised. However, recent developments on social audits, the conduct of which actually finds a place in the BJP’s 2014...

-Hindustan Times More and more farmers are falling into debt trap because farming is no longer profitable and big-ticket infrastructure projects are taking away their lands. Nasik: Shantaram Waghchowre’s worries are multiplying. Already hit by plunging prices for the crops he grows in his five-acre family farm in Maharashtra’s Pimpalgaon Dukre village of Nasik district, he is now staring at abject penury. The state government is set to acquire 50,000 acres of land...

-The Indian Express Concept of torture alien to our culture: Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi New Delhi: From complaints of eroding minority rights and religious intolerance to the crackdown against NGOs, women’s rights to LGBT rights, Kashmir to Afrophobia — India’s track record on human rights came under sharp scrutiny at the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday in Geneva. Several countries expressed concerns on India’s FCRA laws, incidents of religious intolerance, women’s rights...

-The Hindu Indiscriminate digging of farm ponds has accelerated groundwater extraction The Maharashtra government’s flagship Jalyukt Shivar Yojana has been touted as a drought-proofing scheme, but a field study conducted by South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) gives a different picture. The organisation carried out the study at Hiwargaon-Pawasa, a backwater village with a population of 1,500, in Ahmadnagar district’s Sangamner Taluk. The research presents a microcosmic example of how...