-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A ministerial panel is learnt to be taking a final look at a proposal which seeks to raise the income bar defining "creamy layer" for OBC reservation to Rs 8 lakh per annum. The Cabinet note sent by the social justice ministry has been lying with the government for nearly one year and is in the final stages of approval. According to those in the know,...

-The Hindu In contrast to its pronouncements, the government’s own data suggest the economy is in a deep hole Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address, spoke triumphantly about how demonetisation drove ?3 lakh crore of unaccounted money into the banking system. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is still counting old notes, and unaccounted money cases are ongoing. Thus, this number is at best a guesstimate, and cannot be...

-The Hindu Fifty years since the Green Revolution, the architect of the reform highlights the crisis facing Indian agriculture today It is 11 years since agronomist M.S. Swaminathan handed over his recommendations for improving the state of agriculture in India to the former United Progressive Alliance government, at the height of the Vidarbha farmer suicides crisis, but they are still to be implemented. To address the agrarian crisis and farmers’ unrest across...

-Livemint.com The RBI survey for June 2017 shows people are as unhappy with their income growth, employment and economic well-being as they were before the Narendra Modi government came to power Perceptions matter. The government of the day will be able to garner more support if people feel their incomes are increasing or their employment prospects have improved. True, non-economic factors matter a lot and, throughout history, the ability to stage circuses...

-The Indian Express Advancing rights of women farmers can revolutionise the rural ecosystem The stereotypical image of an Indian farmer is a mustachioed man, clad in a white dhoti with farming tools in hand. The reality is the Indian agricultural landscape is fast being feminised. Already, women constitute close to 65 per cent of all agricultural workers. An even greater share, 74 per cent of the rural workforce, is female. Despite their...