-Down to Earth In the 1990s, non-profits and farmers themselves built check dams; today, the government does it, without proper research or site selection Fifty-four-year old Dineshbhai Babariya has just harvested a 20 quintal cotton crop, his second harvest in the last one year in his four bigha (1.6 acre) farm in the Jasapar village of Gujarat’s Saurashtra region. August 2018 was the last time the village in Rajkot district received around 228...

-PTI India must focus on Growth of labour-intensive sectors to create decent jobs for the masses as well as give “serious thought” to privatising the public sector banks (PSBs), eminent economist Arvind Panagariya has said, emphasising that the reform process must be completed in the coming five years. Panagariya, who had served as the first Vice Chairman of the NITI Aayog from January 2015 to August 2017, was responding to a question...

-Livemint.com * Access to electricity is associated with significant improvement in women empowerment, finds a new study * Women's bargaining power increases by 7-10 percentage points because of electrification, says the study Mumbai: In the five years of the Narendra Modi government, India has witnessed near-universal electrification, though the quality of power supply remains sub-standard. Addressing the supply challenge as demand for electricity rapidly increases will be key not only for India’s economic Growth...

-The Hindu The 'State of Working India' report, published by Azim Premji University, was released on Tuesday Since the November 8, 2016 demonetisation, at least five million people lost opportunities to work across the country, while the overall unemployment rate doubled between 2011 and 2018 to 6%, says a 'State of Working India' (SWI) report published by the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE) of the Azim Premji University (APU) that was released...

-Frontline.in The Oxfam India report on employment says jobs remain a huge challenge in India where half of the workforce depends on agriculturefor livelihood. Employment, or the lack of it, has emerged as one of the most contentious issues in the general election this year. Most surveys show that the single biggest concern preoccupying the electorate, especially the youth, is unemployment. The very fact that the government introduced a quota for the...