-The Indian Express Dairy farmers in Gujarat, till recently, were relatively insulated from the crisis faced by those growing cotton, groundnut or potatoes. Rajkot/ New Delhi: AFTER COTTON and groundnut, it’s milk that is turning sour for Gujarat’s farmers. A crash in global skimmed milk powder (SMP) rates, coupled with surging procurement by dairy unions affiliated to the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing FedeRation (GCMMF), has led to an unprecedented glut. In the last...

-The Hindu For the 117 vacancies, 18,200 applications were received TIRUNELVELI (Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu): M.Phil. graduates, postgraduates, engineering graduates and others waited in a long queue in front of Tirunelveli District Central Cooperative Society as certificate verification and interview for 117 posts of salespersons in Ration shops in the district began on Wednesday. Though the basic qualification for this post is just a pass in Plus Two, the educational qualification of the aspirants...

-The Hindu Many States have initiated ‘reforms’ of the public distribution system that are hurting millions of people India’s public distribution system (PDS) is in danger of being derailed in several States across the country. Recent disruptions of the PDS have taken different forms, from compulsory biometric authentication to so-called direct benefit transfer (DBT). The consequences are alarming, but tend to go unreported. Biometric mix-ups Jharkhand is a prime example of this problem. By...

-Down to Earth Income inequality makes agrarian crisis challenging; inequality is worse among farmers than the formal economy Economists Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty recently concluded after a long study that inequality is at its peak in India. It is embedded in popular conscience: “Top 1 per cent of earners captured 22 per cent of total income in the country.” Their study–covering consumption, government accounts and income tax data from 1922...

-The Hindu Open-minded adoption of the RTE Act’s enabling provisions can radically transform school education Free and compulsory education of children in the 6 to 14 age group in India became a fundamental right when, in 2002, Article 21-A was inserted in the 86th Amendment to the Constitution. This right was to be governed by law, as the state may determine, and the enforcing legislation for this came eight years later, as...