-IDROnline.org Agriculture value-chains can only be strengthened by listening to multiple actors; most importantly, farmers. India has been witnessing a spate of month-long farmer protests across the country, particularly in the national capital, against the recently introduced farm bills by the central government. One of the major reasons behind these agitations, including calls for repealing the law, is that farmers were not actively involved in the policymaking cycle of these laws, which...

-IndiaSpend.com More younger workers, and women, lost jobs and struggled to recover them. Even after employment rates recovered, quality of employment deteriorated, with individuals moving into less secure self-employment in agriculture, construction and small-scale trade. Bengaluru: The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a large and sustained economic shock to the global economy. In India, the effect can be broadly divided into two phases--the shock of the nationwide lockdown in the months of April...

-The Hindu State intimidation of protesting groups cannot serve as a substitute for political dialogue The NIA’s decision to summon people associated with the ongoing farmers agitation as ‘witnesses’ in a sedition case is definitely out of the ordinary, even if not entirely surprising. Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu and farmers’ leader Baldev Singh Sirsa are among 40 people it has summoned in connection with a fresh case registered on December 15, 2020...

-The Indian Express The current scenario is ideal for policymakers and practitioners to drive home the importance of health spending and institutional development With the first batch of anti-COVID vaccines being rolled out, the mood of the nation seems to be upbeat as it bids farewell to the pain and anguish of last year. The emergency-use approval to the vaccine developed by Oxford University and the Swedish-British pharma major AstraZeneca, manufactured in...

-IndiaSpend.com Latest data indicate a structural shift away from organised sector jobs towards more insecure self-employment or unorganised sector jobs, Mahesh Vyas of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) tells us in this interview Mumbai: "We have an ageing population. If we have shrinking employment in urban places, if the better educated graduates or postgraduates are the ones who are losing jobs, how can we recover the economy from the downslide...