-The Indian Express Agriculture education is in a poor state. ICAR must be revamped Although autarky on Indian farms is a distant dream, as the 71st year of Independence dawns, penury-ridden farmers are still committing suicide by the thousands— a consequence of decades of short-sightedness, while economists and scientists are still equating food sufficiency to farmer sustainability. The occasion merits introspection on the core issues of farmers’ distress. We must begin at the...

Will you go and make complaints to the same public official against whom you have a grievance? Of course not. However, in a judgement dated 21 July, 2017 by a two-judge Supreme Court (SC) bench, it has been observed that officers in charge of implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), were also designated as District Grievance Redressal Officers (DGROs) by several state governments. Section 15 of NFSA The SC...

-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 Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today asked the government to be "unrelenting, stern and uncompromising" against corruption to realise the benefits of liberalisation and welfare measures, and urged the public to "rise against bribery and corruption". The bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and R. Banumathi also upheld the conviction of former IAS officer Neera Yadav under the Prevention of Corruption Act. "This is the area where the government needs to be...

-Livemint.com Policy should focus not just on higher production but also on helping farmers manage risks Anybody who is dismissive of the wave of farmer protests across the country should first understand the difficult everyday economics of the Indian agriculturalist. Most farmers swim in a turbulent sea of risks against which they have almost no protection. The risks begin with sowing. The production in the months ahead is deeply dependent on weather conditions....