-TheWire.in With the 2019 elections around the corner, political parties should step up to the plate and display their commitment to children’s nutrition. This week, the prime minister made headlines by serving midday meals supplied by  Akshaya Patra at a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Vrindavan. While he engaged in banter with the children about being late, one of the students wittily interjected that she didn’t mind as she had already eaten at home. While...

-The Indian Express The Centre plans to transfer Rs 4,000 to small and marginal farmers under the PM-Kisan scheme by the first week of April, well before the Lok Sabha polls start. The transfer of Rs 2,000 to the bank accounts of farmers will commence from February 24 under the income support scheme and preparations are on to cover as high as 1 crore farmers on the first day of the...

-Financial Express Farmers in India (also in undivided India) have generally been poor, and it has not been only the phenomenon of post-reforms period in Independent India, as believed by some. Yes, now it is becoming worse day by day. Farmers’ distress over the past few years has taken a new dimension so much so that political parties, without exception, are now using it as an opportunity to win elections by...

-Livemint.com With barely a few months to go for 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the question across political party lines is: what can really be done now, and quickly? New Delhi: When residents gather around the fire on foggy winter evenings in Rampura, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, the conversation often veers toward the declining fortunes in agriculture. Take 27-year-old Pushpendra Singh, who completed his master’s degree in commerce in 2016,...

-Livemint.com Loan waivers and the promise to raise MSP cannot solve the problem The victory of Congress party in the recent assembly elections of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan has brought the agrarian crisis in rural areas to the centre of political debate. While there are several factors in election victories, the severity of the agrarian unrest was surely a major factor. While there is consensus that the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party...