-Down to Earth Participants voice concern on drought, farmers' suicide and water conservation, among other issues The three-day long Kisan Swaraj Sammelan held in Hyderabad (April 1 to 3) urged for the enactment of a Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act to ensure dignified earning levels for agricultural households among a host of other things. Organised by the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, a group comprising 400 diverse organisations from across India, the...

-The Indian Express The picture is completed by the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (crop insurance) and e-market platform that he is going to launch on April 14. For the last two months, the Narendra Modi government seems to have gone into an overdrive to appease farmers. Several farmer rallies have been organised and the common theme has been the PM’s “dream” to double the incomes of farmers by 2022. According to...

-Business Standard India should invest in mapping the country's aquifers and take steps to aid groundwater recharge to check a looming water crisis, experts said. With 40 per cent of the country under the impact of consecutive failed monsoons, water rationing could become a norm in many parts of the country in the coming summer, they warned. According to a recent Central Water Commission report, water levels in the Maharashtra reservoirs are 58...

-Kafila.org The last few months have seen an unusual public engagement around questions of secularism, freedom of speech, sedition and the like, with furious debates everywhere from our campuses, streets and TV studios to the floor of Parliament. The budget session has been enlivened by scenes of high drama, with the leading lights of the Treasury benches bringing colour, sound and fury to their tutorials on patriotism and nationalism. While these high-decibel...

-The Hindu As the government pushes for ‘Make in India’, it could begin by unmaking the damage the post-1991 reforms inflicted on domestic industry. This year marks 25 years since the so-called “economic reforms” were launched in July 1991. By now, broad contours of the policies and practices that characterised such reforms are well known, viz. radical deregulation, marketisation and privatisation of the industrial, technological and financial sectors, and an across-the-board...