-The Indian Express For a country that aims to be a regional power, the data on child nutrition confirms that the situation is abysmal. Save for Bihar, six of the seven states with the highest incidence of stunting, for example, are ruled by the BJP or the BJP and its allies – Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Bihar. After an agonising wait of over ten years, the...

-The Hindu Business Line 1.5 times the defence budget may be needed for unproductive animals: Economist Rawal New Delhi: The ban on cow slaughter can pose a serious threat to the Indian economy in the near future, as the country may have to spend 1.5 times its current Defence Budget to take care of an additional 27 crore unproductive animals annually, an agricultural economist has warned. Speaking at a function organised by Bhumi Adhikar Andolan, a...

-Newsclick.in Forget 50 percent profit over the cost of production, the farmers were forced to sell their produce at well below the minimum support price and the cost of production, pushing them deeper into debt. Farming turning increasingly unviable across vast swathes of India, and the Narendra Modi-led government not delivering on the BJP’s election promise to “make agriculture rewarding” lie behind the massive protests that have rocked several BJP-ruled states in...

-The Hindu Business line Distressed farmers are demanding loan waivers, but that should not deflect focus from what needs to be done and undone to address the root cause of the agrarian crisis The farmers’ unrest across the country, and particularly across several BJP-ruled States, appears to have caught the central government by surprise. But it should really not have done so. Ever since candidate Narendra Modi in 2014 promised the farmers...

-The Indian Express With a glut in agricultural production, prices have fallen below MSPs. The government needs to get the agri-market right to address the farm crisis The farmers’ protests in Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Maharashtra indicate that all is not well on the economic front, especially agriculture. If such unrest could happen in MP, which claims to have registered the fastest agri-GDP growth at 9.7 per cent per year during...