-The Times of India Tamil Nadu’s alarmingly low sex ratio at birth of 840 in 2016 according to the civil registration system could be due to a large number of adults registering their birth in recent years in a bid to get passports made. According to National Health Mission officials in Tamil Nadu, if only the births in a particular year are considered, the state’s sex ratio at birth was a...

-The Hindu Journalist-author Meena Menon on the crisis of cotton and why India needs to go back to desi varieties There’s a pithy summing up of Bt Cotton in Meena Menon’s 2018 article ‘A lost cotton heritage’. “Bt cotton is like Fair and Lovely,” Kamal Kishore Dhiran, an organic cotton farmer, tells the journalist and author. “Does it really change you or make you fair? Similarly Bt cotton doesn’t address the main...

-The Hindu The solution lies in better schemes that ensure universal coverage for small, marginal and medium-sized farmers To do or not to do? According to reports, the Central government is discussing a scheme to waive outstanding farm loans in the aftermath of widespread farmers’ protests between March and December 2018 . Till now, at least 11 States have announced schemes to waive outstanding farm loans: Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil...

-The Hindu The Act nullified the controversial March 20 apex court judgment diluting the stringent provisions of the Dalit protection law. The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to stay the ScheduLED Castes and the ScheduLED Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act of 2018, which nullified the controversial March 20 apex court judgment diluting the stringent provisions of the Dalit protection law. The government had brought in the amendments, saying the ScheduLED Castes and...

-The Economic Times blog As policymakers debate what form of income support will cure India’s extensive farm distress, we have a study whose insights suggest that the right policy has to look beyond ratcheting up support prices to unsustainable levels and cash transfers to farmers. Agricultural policy is deeply flawed and calls for structural reform. This crisis can no longer be contained with band-aid. It calls for proper diagnosis and remedy. Such...