-Livemint.com The only way to solve the farmers’ problem is to make entry to other sectors attractive by creating employment opportunities, and to make it easy to exit farming Farmers have a bad romance with the Indian polity. On the one hand, India loves, even worships, these farmers. On the other, Indian policymakers create the most impossible regulatory environment for the agricultural sector, trapping farmers in a low-income, low-productivity occupation. The latest...

-Livemint.com Corporate job growth has recovered over the past couple of years but the pace of job creation remains lacklustre The promise of creating new jobs helped Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win a historic victory in the 2014 general elections. With a year left for the next general elections, Modi and his government find themselves under fire from opponents for what they perceive to be a failure to...

-The Hindu Business Line WRMS forecasts deficit rains for Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu Thiruvananthapuram: In what is seen as the first official outlook for year 2018 monsoon, private forecaster Weather Risk Management Services (WRMS) has said that the June-September rainfall would be largely on the ‘positive side of normal’ (normal to above normal). The forecast comes in the backdrop of a season that flattered to deceive in the just past year, recording only...

  A national-level public hearing, which was organized at the Gandhi Peace Foundation (Delhi) on 15th March, 2018, has revealed that the intended beneficiaries of various entitlement-based welfare schemes and programmes of the Central government are witnessing difficulties and impediments in accessing the benefits and services. During the public hearing, which was organized by the Right to Food Campaign along with partnering grassroots-level organizations, poor and marginalized citizens from across 14 states...

-The Indian Express First, let us compliment both the parties—farmers and the state government—in Maharashtra’s agrarian crisis for reaching an amicable solution, at least for the time being, and averting a major chaos or violence. First, let us compliment both the parties—farmers and the state government—in Maharashtra’s agrarian crisis for reaching an amicable solution, at least for the time being, and averting a major chaos or violence. Farmers deserve appreciation for...