-Firstpost.com Ludhiana: Free meals, payment in advance, free liquor to ease aching limbs after a hard day’s work. MIGrant labour in Punjab, mainly from Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, the mainstay of the state’s agriculture sector, has never had it so good. The problem, however, is the decreasing availability of this labour. Ask Baljinder Singh, a farmer with a 10-acre holding in Dakha village. Come sowing season in mid-June, Baljinder...

-Hindustan Times Bus journey takes lesser time, is more punctual and on most occasions, one can find a seat just before the vehicle departs. This is in stark contrast to the Bihar-bound trains which are often delayed by as much as 24 hours, needs a ticket to be booked months in advance and on which landing a Tatkal ticket requires monumental effort and ample luck. New Delhi: An impatient Chandan Singh does...

-The Telegraph Given increasing government influence on primary education, we must ask who controls the substance of what children are taught. Education is an important human capability that is considered essential for economic development. Education helps one to know about the world one lives in, think, discover new facts, and create new objects of use. It also helps one in making informed decisions and choices. Education is useful to an individual in...

-The Hindu Business Line The AASHA scheme promises better returns on crops, but implementation is the key With the decades-old minimum support price (MSP) system failing to address the crisis at the farm gate, the three schemes that are a part of AASHA – the Price Support Scheme (PSS) itself, the Price Deficiency Payment Scheme (PDPS) and the Pilot of Private Procurement and Stockist Scheme (PPPS) – point to an innovative, MSP-plus...

-The Indian Express As the elderly population grows, India faces new questions, must find new answers. During my childhood, we had a rather strict rule about having dinner together as a family. My grandparents were close to my father, and he to them. The cacophony of cross-conversations between grandparents, parents, cousins bore testimony to filial responsibility that had been deeply internalised by every generation. For a society in the throes of turbulent change,...