-Hindustan Times The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called on governments to incorporate pro-women fiscal measures in budgets, so as to bridge the gender gap. In its first-ever global review of the use of tax and spending policies to promote gender equality, IMF has found that financial policies in Union and state budgets have helped gender parity. Highlighting changes across 80 countries, the IMF study, Tackling Gender Inequality, says fiscal policy efforts were...

-Earth Island Journal It’s too early to hail Sikkim’s transition to chemicals-free agriculture an outright success, say observers Sikkim, the picturesque northeastern Indian state in the eastern Himalayas, announced in January that it had transitioned completely to organic agriculture — the first state in the South Asian nation to do so. The process of shifting to organic agriculture was initiated by the state government 13 years ago when it launched the Sikkim Organic...

-The Hindu In a landmark judgment in 2013, the Central Information Commission had ruled that political parties come within the ambit of the Right to Information Act. The tug of war between the six national political parties and the Central Information Commission (CIC) continues as they continue to defy its orders three years after it had declared them as “public authorities” under the Right to Information Act, 2005 making it mandatory for...

-The Indian Express State government says it won’t be able to foot the 50:50 share of bill. Tussle is brewing between the Nitish Kumar-led government in Bihar and the NDA government at the Centre on the issue of the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). Almost three-fourth of Bihar’s population is dependent on agriculture. While the state has expressed its difficulty in meeting the financial burden of its share in the...

-Frontline A noteworthy study that provides much-needed insights into the nature and severity of the farm crisis in Punjab. There have been many studies on agrarian distress and farmer suicides in different parts of India in the last decade, including in Punjab. Most of the studies focus on a profile of the victims, mostly landowning farmers, and reasons thereof, with a sample of such farmers. In this context, this book makes a...