-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Identifying "informal tenancy" as one of the main reasons behind farmer suicides since many don't get farm credit and crop insurance, a group of secretaries has suggested the government come out with a model tenancy law. Such a law will protect the tenants as they will get access to loans from banks and financing agencies and it will also end the fear of original owners...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government is setting out to achieve in the next two years what the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme could just about accomplish in the last 10. The rural development ministry is confident of adding 1 million Farm Ponds and wells and another million vermi composting farms under the programme. That's almost as much as the total such assets the scheme — put...

-The Indian Express A renewed funding squeeze may undermine MGNREGA’s recent revival, fear civil society activists. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme which guarantees 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households, may have staged a revival in the last two quarters after showing a declining trend in person-days generation during the first year of the Narendra Modi government. But the turnaround could well be temporary,...

-Hindustan Times The Chennai floods have thrown up some fundamental flaws in our system of urban planning. Across India, city after city has experienced floods, while some others live with the fear of impending disasters. In Mumbai, flooding was caused by wrong developments at the Bandra estuary and negligence along the Mithi river, and in Uttarakhand the disaster was caused by unplanned regional development and the unholy nexus between the land...

-GovernanceNow.com A survey in drought-hit Bundelkhand paints a startling picture of farmers in distress Bundelkhand, the land of famous warriors Alha and Udal, is entrapped in an unending battle. But unlike 1857, today there is no ‘harbola’ to tell the stories of sacrifices. Then, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan wrote, “Bundele harbolon ke munh hamne suni kahani thi, khoob ladi mardani voh to Jhansi wali rani thi (from the mouths of storytellers of...