-Hindustan Times India, the father of the nation famously said, lives in its villages, or, as many call it, Bharat. There is no doubt that a great shift is underway: As 600 million move out of rural areas over the next 35 years, India will need about 500 new cities. But unless Bharat offers a fraction of the hope that ushered in Narendra Modi’s era, the ongoing urban transformation of India...

-Outlook Recent studies point to two areas where NREGS has had an impact — rural education and Naxalite conflict. "Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man."  This rather depressing assessment of the field is the opening sentence of Henry Hazlitt's classic primer, Economics in one lesson. In Hazlitt's view, most economists only measure the immediate impact of their policies. A good economist, Hazlitt contended, looks not merely...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Jaidev Mahto, 65, mortgaged 2.5 acres of land to repay a bank loan of Rs 25,000. A resident of Bardaha village in Dhanbad district, Mahato had taken the loan against his Kisan Credit Card (KCC) for Kharif crops that were damaged completely due to scarcity of rainfall this year. Hemant Singh, 50, a farmer of Pyraguri village in East Singhbhum district, took a KCC loan of Rs 28,000 for...

-Business Standard Drop in wheat acreage evidence of stress in agriculture Chandigarh: Two consecutive drought years have led to rural distress in the food bowl states. At some places, this has become even worse due to the attack of the white pest. Sahiblal Shukla, a farmer in Chitrakut in Uttar Pradesh , who has spent his lifetime in ploughing fields says that, “farmers in Bundelkhand area of the state may soon pack their...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: Poonam Vanzara, 15, a nomadic girl from Dahod, and a resident of Vatva in Ahmedabad, has not even been to school. She along with 14.93 lakh children in the age group of 6-18 years from Gujarat have never attended school. The census figures about attending education institute reveal that around 9.63% children and youth between 6-18 years have never attended the schools. Gujarat has 1.55 crore children...