-The Hindu The AAP will hope that the Assembly polls are a referendum on its government’s work Delhi, the Union Territory (UT) that hosts India’s capital city, might lag behind several States in total population and in area, but it enjoys outsize significance in terms of media and political attention. With 1.47 crore electors spread across the largely metropolitan national capital region and its pockets of rural voters in some suburbs, Delhi...

-The Indian Express There’s a need to come up with a new model of growth through focused value chains. When it comes to exports, there are several key issues that affect the various stakeholders concerned. It’s almost sardonic that when you type “agrarian” in Google, it invariably suggests “crisis” as the following word. In 2019, the Indian farm sector grew minus 0.1% year-on-year in January-March and 2% and 2.1% in the next...

-The Telegraph MGNREGA funds run thin, government sits on demand Millions of rural job scheme workers may have their wages delayed in the new year with the programme coffers depleting and the finance ministry sitting on the demand for additional funds. According to data on the scheme website, the funds available as of December 30, 2019, were Rs 2,766 crore, which social activists working on the scheme’s implementation said would be exhausted in...

-The Hindu Business Line The PM-Kisan as a tool to prop up sagging rural demand, recording of tenancy to help the real cultivators and streamlining of agricultural subsidies could be three important themes for Indian agriculture in 2020. With the defeat in the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in December 2018, the Government realised that to win rural votes in the General Elections in May 2019, it needed to...

-Newsclick.in The Centre had promised to release funds in a week’s time about two weeks back. At a time when the crisis-ridden economy has pushed millions against the wall, with many not being able to make ends meet, the employment guarantee scheme (Mahatma Gandhi National rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005) is adding to the distress of the poor—instead mitigating it. In Rajasthan, funds that are yet to be released for the payment of...