-The Economic Times Indian farmer's plight has changed little even under GST that aims to revolutionise all kinds of businesses. NEW DELHI: That the farmer has historically had one of the most unrewarding and thankless jobs in India is fairly common knowledge. Data sets after data sets show how Indian farmers have remained hopelessly caught between ineffective policy and equally ineffective implementation — through the Five-Year-Plans era, through successive governments, and through...

-Financial Express The government’s proposed Unnati scheme, if it works as planned, offers MGNREGA beneficiaries a ticket out of the programme, and, in the long run, out of poverty. It has been clear for a long time that MGNREGA is barely the poverty reduction tool it is often made out to be; at Rs 204 per day per person, the average wage rate across the country is too low to sustain a...

-TheWire.in Given the increased policy and intervention focus on producer companies, it becomes imperative to understand exactly how many there are. On July 5, 2019, the Centre announced a plan to promote 10,000 new farmer producer companies over the next five years. India already has many such companies, which have been registered since they were introduced in 2002 through an amendment to the Companies Act. While registered under that Act, they have several...

-The Hindu Business Line Speaking to BusinessLine at a farm on the outskirts of Aurangabad, Subhash Palekar, father of ZBNF, rebuts every criticism and allays every fear that have been raised The Modi government sees zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) as a solution to the farm crisis. The 2018-19 Economic Survey recommended it and so did the 2019 Union Budget. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised many by asking farmers not...

-The Hindu Business Line Noted Gandhian economist Dr Sudarshan Iyengar surveys the distressed agricultural landscape, pinpoints its weaknesses, and prescribes solutions with their roots in Gandhian agronomics. Edited excerpts from an interview to BusinessLine: * Given the agrarian crisis in India today, how relevant are Gandhi's economic principles based on the village economy, and equitable distribution of resources? They are relevant in the context of Gandhi's view of gram swaraj (village self-rule), which...