-Livemint.com As announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, 25 million farmers who do not have a Kisan Credit Card will now be able to avail concessional credit The government on Thursday decided to boost the flow of credit to the agriculture by attempting to bring more farmers under the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme and through an additional outlay for farm loan refinance. As announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, 25 million farmers...

-The Hindu On the contrary, scrapping labour laws will only reduce wages, lower earnings and reduce consumer demand Following the adage, “never waste a crisis”, the government of Uttar Pradesh, last week, introduced an ordinance that has scrapped most labour laws for three years — ostensibly for creating jobs and for attracting factories exiting China following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. These laws deal with the occupational safety, health and working...

-TheWire.in Why do some COVID apps prefer to shun location tracking altogether and some don't? The mobile phone seems to be an important weapon in the fight against COVID-19. Phone apps that track location – basically, latitude, longitude at a specific time – and send this information to health authorities live are being deployed to ensure that phone owners remain within quarantine zones. A different use simply records the location trail over a...

-The Indian Express The draft proposes that the land pooling model which is used in building greenfield airports can be used in agriculture to enable corporatisation, which will create demand for skilled labourers. A LAND pooling model enabling corporatisation of agriculture, opening up EPF and ESIC for the unorganised sector, merging the MNREGA with skill development programmes to create a wage subsidy programme —- these are some of the proposals that have...

-TheWire.in An article critical of the government's response to COVID-19 was published on The New Indian Express's website on May 8, and disappeared from its link within a day. Last week, The New Indian Express, one of India’s major English newspapers, pulled down an article that was heavily critical of the Centre’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The article, entitled ‘Centre’s COVID-19 Communication Plan: hold back data, gag agencies and scientists’, discussed...