-Press release by Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) dated 6 October, 2019 Farmers’ movements are inviting all citizens, social organisations and people’s movements of India to hold protests all over the country on the 24th of October 2019, against the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Free Trade Agreement. The Indian government is negotiating RCEP with 15 other countries including ASEAN countries along with large industrial economies like China, Japan, South...

-PTI MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India has ordered Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank not to do any business for six months and capped depositor withdrawals at Rs 1,000, throwing the lives of thousands of traders, self-employed and daily wage earners into disarray. The regulator has also appointed an administrator for the bank. Defaults appear to have surged in the past six months amid tight economic conditions and some lumpy loans...

-Hindustan Times India’s obsession with keeping food prices low, even when there’s no inflationary pressure, has long hurt farm incomes Farming is gloriously uncertain, thanks not just to uncertain weather, but also unpredictable policies. Let’s zoom into the finances of Bhupinder Pal Singh, a horticulturist from Babbain, a village in Haryana, a state that counts itself among the first places where India’s Green Revolution of 1960s began. In good years, Singh would earn...

-Down to Earth India’s homegrown dairy industry would require a support of around Rs 8-10 per kilogram of milk if the government allows import of dairy products from New Zealand and Australia under RCEP The Union government would not take any decision against the interests of homegrown cooperatives and private dairy companies as far as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was concerned. This was the assurance given by the Union Ministry...

-Hindustan Times It threatens individual sovereignty, undermines citizen rights, and is a lost chance to meaningfully grapple with data colonisation Data is a sovereign asset,” said the Union minister of railways and commerce, Piyush Goyal, at the G20 meeting in Japan. Goyal was against using Free Trade agreements to justify the free flow of data. Instead, he said, government restrictions on data flows would allow India to be able to use “personal,...