-Newsclick.in “Our population today is around 136 crore. Where will you get food grains for them through zero budget farming? This is sheer madness.” There is an inherent seductive charm to the term zero budget natural farming, for it makes the arduous occupation of agriculture appear beguilingly simple, an economic proposition without any risk or even requirement of capital. Coined by the Vidarbha-based farmer, Subhash Palekar, who was bestowed with the Padma...

-The Hindu India needs to double yearly rate of fall in stunting cases to achieve its 2022 target A new report, ‘Food and Nutrition Security Analysis, India, 2019’, authored by the Government of India and the United Nations World Food Programme, paints a picture of hunger and malnutrition amongst children in large pockets of India. This punctures the image of a nation marching towards prosperity. It raises moral and ethical questions about...

-The Telegraph Low wages, no social security mark ‘non-standard forms of employment’ By 11am last Wednesday, Salim had collected all the household trash littering the lanes in the central Delhi neighbourhood of Regar Pura and dumped it in the local garbage yard. If he were a regular civic employee, his day’s work would be over. But Salim said his “actual work” would only start now: he would be segregating the plastic bags and bottles and liquor...

-TheNewsMinute.com Set up in 2017, Kisan Mitra provides counselling to distressed farmers and acts as a bridge between them and the government. “It was during the 2018 floods that we got a call from a farmer in Adilabad. The caller didn’t need any help for himself but said that his neighbour has been sitting in a corner of his field since morning with a bottle of pesticide in his hand. The...

-The Hindu In the heated debate on jobs, the crucial link between macroeconomic policy and unemployment has not been flagged Innumerable tasks with respect to the economy await the winner of the parliamentary elections now under way, but two may be mentioned and they are connected. The first is to review the conduct of macroeconomic policy. Though it must come across as arcane, this is an element of public policy that makes...