-PTI/ NDTV.com Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people take precautions against the coronavirus and warned against its spread in rural areas. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the coronavirus pandemic is rapidly spreading in rural areas, as he urged citizens to take precautions, wear masks and maintain social distance to check spread disease that has claimed at least 2.6 lakh lives. The government, he said, is working on "war footing"...

-Down to Earth State pays out 83% of wheat MSP due for rabi season in a month Punjab has successfully paid the lion’s share of price due to wheat farmers for their produce via the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) route as the Rabi marketing season nears its end. However, farmers are unsure about what it will mean for their equation with the aarthiyas or commission agents, who have been their financial backbones...

In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...

-The Tribune While attracting private capital investments in production, processing and marketing of high-value agriculture, the associated adverse socio-economic implications must be avoided. Last year, Parliament enacted the Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020. It is supposed to empower farmers to get engaged with upgraded value chain partners in a fair, transparent, mutually agreeable and remunerative manner to enhance their income by reducing marketing risks....

Although services provided by the gig and platform workers touch the lives of each one of us, we have little knowledge about the role of digital labour platforms in transforming the world of work. Such digital labour platforms have created unprecedented opportunities for workers, businesses and society. However, they also pose serious threats to decent work and fair competition. A recent report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) shows that the...