-Hindustan Times The design of large injections of public funds for India’s agriculture economy needs to be informed with rigorous evaluations on what is effective for higher farm productivity. A wage subsidy for farm-labour is one modification that needs an evaluation, to generate evidence to inform how the MGNREGA policy generates employment when there is need, but without stress to farm production Indian agriculture is witnessing a period of complex socio-economic distress,...

-ThePrint.in From mixing the stubble into soil, to making manure and use in the packaging industry, there are a lot of ways in which the problem of stubble burning can be solved. North-west India is currently in the grips of a poisonous smog, produced by farmers through paddy straw and stubble burning. The smog is affecting the germination and growth of crops, as well has having a harmful effect on human health. Farmers...

-GOIMonitor.com Misleading marketing of farm poisons and tardy regulation are costing lives of farmers and farm hands AS MANY as 50 persons died and around 1,000 were hospitalised with 25 losing their vision after exposure to chemical fumes from spraying of pesticides in Yevatmal district of Maharashtra. Most of those affected were farm labourers who neither had any safety apparatus nor were guided on the ideal way to use the pesticides. These cases...

-The Indian Express To suggest that demonetisation improved rural wages on the basis of rise in income of some workers is misleading. It halted the recovery of the rural economy, which had begun after the 2016 monsoon. There is now a consensus that the economy has been slowing down and is headed for a hard landing. Many who matter have spoken out and as Yashwant Sinha points out (‘I need to speak...

-India Legal Despite the apex court saying that minimum pay is a fundamental right, the centre has made no attempt to harmonise these with statutory minimum remuneration of agricultural labourers in states Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his colleagues in the NDA government and the BJP never tire of reiterating their slogan, Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas or of talking about Antyodaya, a doctrine which talks about the “rise of the last person”. Yet, if...