-The Indian Express Yes, except that farmers suffer rules other businessmen never encounter Agriculture is said to be India’s largest private-sector enterprise, engaging nearly 119 million farmers (“cultivators”) and another 144 million landless labourers, as per the 2011 Census. It is even considered the most respectable business, going by the oft-quoted slogan “uttam kheti, madhyam vyapar, kanishtha naukri (supreme is farming, mediocre is trade and most lowly is service)”. But the exalted...

-The Hindu The Modi government must stop engaging U.S. Bureaucrats as patent consultants and instead showcase the Indian patent statute as an exemplar for a balanced regime Earlier this month, the media reported that India “privately” assured the United States that it will not issue any more compulsory licenses. This report was reminiscent of a theory propounded by psychologist Lenore E. Walker in 1979 on abusive patterns in relationships. Four stages of abuse Walker...

-The Morung Express Chizami: “The Nagas are very hard working people,” said Swarupama continually on her first visit to Nagaland from Yedakupalli village in Medak district of Telangana State. She is a senior leader among the team of Dalit women farmers, videographers and coordinator here for the International Women’s Day and Biodiversity Festival observed by the North East Network in Chizami, Phek district, on March 8 and 9. The women are part...

-The Hindu Medicines remain overpriced and unaffordable in India. In a country mired in poverty, medical debt remains the second biggest factor for keeping millions in poverty. The international pharmaceutical industry has found its cash cow in India’s beleaguered consumers. With a minimum wage of Rs.250/day for a government worker, a basic wage worker afflicted with a chronic disease like multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis faces penury. His treatment, with drug combinations, which works out...

-The Hindu Business Line The bureaucracy has been unable to take it forward, thanks to its reluctance to share information and ideas Having been a chief minister for long, Narendra Modi as Prime Minister has rightly put his weight behind cooperative and competitive federalism. In March last year, I had elaborated in this column the relationship between the two in the context of development and growth in India in an article ‘What sort...