-The Hindu Business Line It was a gratuitous and direct assault on the informal sector by the state The retrospective defence being provided by the Government for its act of suddenly demonetising 86 per cent of the country’s currency is as mindless as the act itself. The main argument for demonetisation that was advanced a year ago was that ‘black money’-holders would not dare to bring their demonetised currency to the banks;...

-Down to Earth As allegedly fake pesticides prove ineffective in controlling pests, farmers resort to indiscriminate spraying After a series of farmer suicides in Odisha’s Bargarh district over pest attack, the state government finally acknowledged that there are nearly 200,000 hectares of area, on which paddy is grown, has been Damaged across nine districts. According to farmers, spurious pesticides were in use which proved ineffective to control Brown Plant Hopper, which first...

-The Indian Express The transition from a regime of ‘downward stickiness’ to ‘upward stickiness’ has relevance beyond economic jargon. Here’s how Agricultural commodity prices in India have traditionally exhibited what economists call “downward stickiness” — resistance to any declines, while rising at the slightest demand-supply imbalance. That conventional wisdom may have been turned on its head by demonetisation. The tendency now is for prices to be increasingly “sticky upward”. The accompanying table (right)...

-ThePrint.in The central government’s policy of not allowing Punjab to diversify is causing Damage to the health of people in faraway Delhi. Crop stubble burning is a nuisance for both humans and the ecosystem as a whole. And the farmer needs a systematic support system to tide over the problem. The support can come in many ways: central government policy intervention being the most important. Through its current policy, the central government is...

-The New Indian Express NEW DELHI: Amid controversial reports of hunger deaths in Jharkhand due to PDS beneficiaries being turned away, economist Jean Dreze says that even official records show that a significant proportion of people are being deprived of food rations every month. In an interview with New Sunday Express, the prime mover behind the NREGA welfare scheme said “this does not mean that Aadhaar is solely responsible for the failures...