-The Hindu The top-down, rushed approach of the government in reaching out to farmers is likely to end in failure This year’s Interim Budget is being regarded as a big spread for farmers. The government announced its decision to transfer Rs.6,000 every year directly to 12 crore farmers holding cultivable land up to 2 hectares through the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme. While this is a progressive step, is it...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation, coupled with daily limits on cash transactions and fear of being tracked by revenue authorities post the Goods and Services Tax regime, have made traders less inclined to purchasing and stocking up produce during the harvest season. The defining feature of Indian agriculture in the last five years — much of it under the Narendra Modi government’s tenure — has been low prices for farm produce. The accompanying...

-Livemint.comThere is a growing recognition among policymakers of the need for a multidimensional approach to assess deprivationThere's been some good news for India over the last month. Three different robust, credible measures of poverty have recorded a dramatic reduction in the incidence of poverty in India. The most straightforward of these, the World Bank's estimate of the number of people living on less than $1.90 per day on a purchasing...

-TheWire.in Activists have argued that the purchasing power of the Rs 200 per month pension initiated in 2007 has already come down to Rs 93. New Delhi: On Sunday, about 10,000 elderly people from across the country came together at a Pension Parishad protest organised at Jantar Mantar in the capital demand universal pension rights for the elderly, single women, persons with disabilities, and other poor and vulnerable workers of the unorganised...

-Livemint.com The government is confident of doubling farmers’ income by 2022, says Modi New Delhi: Indian farmers are taking to new and scientific methods of cultivation by adopting organic and solar powered farming, while the government has formulated an agriculture export policy to prepare farmers for the international market, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his Independence Day speech on Wednesday. “Despite apprehensions of many, we have set a goal to double farmer...