-The Indian Express Twelve states presently show a negative balance with long overdue unpaid wages, threatening the continuation of the scheme. Despite the recent revival, there is crisis looming for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) as the Rural Development Ministry has exhausted more than 95 per cent of its budget provision for the scheme. The fund squeeze has forced Rural Development Minister Birender Singh to write to Finance...

-The Hindu Anand Vihar in east Delhi reported the most pollution All six north Indian cities for which data was available had worse air quality than Beijing in 2015, The Hindu’s analysis of official data shows. However the south’s comparatively better air quality levels hide some lethal truths. Launched in April 2015, India’s National Air Quality Index portal produces an Air Quality Index (AQI) value for around 15 cities based on the most...

-Economic and Political Weekly Bihar has been showing signs of emerging from stagnation and backwardness. For this to occur in full, an Agrarian transformation is central in a state where urbanisation remains very low. This paper uses longitudinal household data from a sample of villages to explore changes in production relations, land and other assets, agricultural development and occupational diversification. There has been a significant change in class structure and a...

-The Times of India Ramesh Chand has spent over three decades in farm research and teaching agricultural economics and policy. He has now been appointed as a key member of the NITI Aayog to prepare a blueprint for the revival of the agricultural sector. In an interview to TOI, Chand talks about prices, rural distress, role of cutting edge technology and the need for state run institutions in the farm sector....

-Hindustan Times Wheat, the country’s winter staple, has hit hurdles, with farmers unable to sow the normal area and instances of a dreaded fungus attack being reported from some parts of Punjab and Haryana, raising concerns of a lower output. Summer foodgrain output fell 1.7% at 124.05 million tonne, according to the government’s first of the four quarterly estimates due to a crippling back-to-back drought. This has hurt farm incomes, which support...