-Outlook In the last two decades, more than 300,000 farmers have ended their lives. What can be done? Indian agriculture is important as it feeds an estimated 1.3 billion population of the country and is also burdened with the responsibility of providing livelihoods to 60 per cent of the people — 780 million people. No foreign country can produce this mammoth quantity of food and supply to India nor any sector...

-The Indian Express The MGNREGA was inspired by the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, passed in 1977, wherein policymakers found wage employment as the best way to empower people against drought As India faces the onslaught of another severe drought, and water, food, and employment dry up, the government will claim that it is doing its best to cope with the adversity. But, given the facts, that will be a patently false...

-The Hindu The GARV app puts pressure on State Governments for timely and quality delivery “I am going to turn everything into an app and I am going to allow people to monitor daily what work we are doing, what work States are doing” — Piyush Goyal, March 23, 2016 at the Power Focus Summit Rural electrification has been an enduring challenge for successive governments. Given India’s federal structure, States provide last-mile connectivity...

-The Hindu The Centre should step forward and bring both Punjab and Haryana, ruled by the BJP and an ally, to the negotiating table to resolve the crisis over the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal Contemporary India illustrates the tragic paradox of farmers’ politics: they get divided just when they need to unite the most. The last few years have witnessed a deepening of the agrarian crisis in India. This is the moment when...

-Down to Earth The Centre has promised more money to panchayats, but there is many a slip between cup and lip Like last year, the budget for the financial year 2016-17 also had a much-desirable provision. Last year, the government had increased the share of states in the Central divisible pool by 10 per cent after accepting the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission. This year, the government has accepted another big...