-Livemint.com To stabilize crop prices and make them remunerative, the Swaminathan Commission proposed significant improvements in the implementation of MSPs Across the country, farmers are furious—and rightfully so. Four years ago, they helped bring the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power, believing Narendra Modi’s claims that they would no longer suffer official neglect. But since then, conditions in agriculture have got worse. Earlier problems have worsened as farm incomes have been squeezed...

-Down to Earth The protests are in opposition to the vague position of the Rules on forest-dwelling communities in the compensatory afforestation process The draft Compensatory Afforestation Fund Rules, 2018, notified by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) on February 16, have sparked protests by tribal organisations in Odisha. The protests are due to the fact that the Rules are vague on the role of communities in...

-Press Release by National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) New Delhi: Calling this year’s union budget ‘just an exercise in manipulation of numbers,’ veteran activist Medha Patkar asked, “When the major decisions like the demonetisation and GST are taken between two budgets then what’s the relevance of the Budget?,” at a panel discussion on the analysis of this year’s union budget with a special focus on Handloom, Fisheries, Dalits, Adivasis, Forest,...

-The Hindu Where the citizen-government gap is bridged by using the RTI Act for administrative reforms April 18, 2014 is a day the shepherds around Budgam town near Srinagar will not forget. This was the day when Tosa Maidan — a vast pasture that shepherds from seven districts traditionally grazed their livestock in — was reclaimed from the Indian Army. Leased out to the Army in 1964, Tosa Maidan or ‘the king of...

-The Telegraph The Left in Bengal had often criticised him whenever he red-flagged excessive local tyranny, and spoke about the industrial decline in Bengal. The incumbent ruling party may make tall claims about changes in Bengal since the Trinamul government came to power but he has been candid enough to suggest that he hasn't seen much change either in industrial expansion or in investment in infrastructure. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has...