-IDROnline.org How did India’s Public Distribution System adapt during COVID-19 and what can other social protection schemes learn from it? Social Protection (SP) broadly refers to a set of policies and programmes aimed at protecting people against poverty, vulnerability, and social exclusion throughout their life. Over the last 15 years, India has witnessed a growth in rights-based entitlements and systemic reforms to build a more inclusive SP system. These encompass the Mid-Day...

-The Indian Express Building infrastructure and services, including pre-primary education, maternity, disability and sickness benefits, and long-term care, will help ensure that India’s post-COVID recovery is equitable and gender-inclusive. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “infrastructure” as “the basic systems and services that are needed in order to support an economy.” Traditionally, infrastructure has been understood and interpreted to mean physical, immovable assets, primarily in the energy, transport, telecommunications and water sectors. Over the last...

-The Indian Express An arhtiya from Khanna Mandi said that they are taking blank cheques from farmers as a security, adding that both arhtiyas and farmers know that during every procurement season only pre-decided amount would be deducted. Jalandhar: Just when he was ready to harvest his standing wheat crop and ship it to the mandi, farmer Nihal Singh (name changed) from Bathinda’s Baluana village was thrown off balance by an unlikely...

-The Hindu The revival of the NYAY scheme in Congress’s Kerala manifesto is a welcome step The Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) has become more relevant since it was first proposed two years back. By resurrecting it in its Kerala manifesto, the Congress has an opportunity to make the idea even more robust. Even the best policy proposals find it hard to survive an unsuccessful election campaign. So, it was unexpected to see a...

-Countercurrents.org More than half of rural households in India are landless, or almost so. This deprives them of the most obvious asset needed for sustainable livelihoods and food security in villages–farmland. After  agriculture the next most important source of rural livelihood in India is dairy farming but here too the household with farmland has free access to crop residues which is increasingly not available to landless households who  have to incur extra...