-Hindustan Times To begin with, it is imperative that the government and the ruling coalition acknowledge the challenge, and not be dismissive about it. Ambiguous expressions such as “promoting self-employment” do not help. It is difficult to disagree when BJP president Amit Shah says it’s impossible to provide jobs to everyone in a country of 1.25 billion people. It is also equally absurd to agree with him that reports of rising unemployment...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's labour arm has accused the Niti Aayog of being committed to a powerful corporate lobby, said it was responsible for giving the Narendra Modi government an anti-labour face and called for revamping the think tank. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh's scathing criticism of the think tank - that has replaced the Congress-era Planning Commission - coincided with celebrations by the BJP and the government to...

-Hindustan Times The Centre has renamed the Matritva Sahyog Yojana - a scheme under which pregnant and lactating mothers get Rs 6,000 for the first live birth - as Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) in yet another instance of the Prime Minister’s name being prefixed to a government programme. Government sources said the name of the scheme, which was cleared by the Union cabinet last week, was changed to make it...

-Livemint.com Research provides evidence that a blanket farm loan waiver scheme is detrimental to the development of credit markets The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the 2017 state elections in Uttar Pradesh with a thumping majority and once again, the state government has a debt-waiver package ready to be implemented. The BJP’s electoral manifesto had committed to write off loans of small and marginal farmers, which would approximately cost the government Rs37,000...

-Livemint.com Raju Shetty, SSS founder and MP from Hatkanangle, says Maharashtra farmers are feeling ‘let-down and betrayed’ by three years of the Modi rule Mumbai: The ‘Sangharsha Yatra’ launched by all opposition parties in Maharashtra to demand a farm loan waiver may have ended but chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is unlikely to see any let-up in the farmers’ protest across the state. What is worse for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government...