-The Hindu The need is to convINCe farmers of other effective policy interventions that are World Trade Organization compatible The demand of farmers to provide a legal guarantee for the minimum support price (MSP) for their produce has triggered a nationwide debate. Some believe it would be “fiscally ruinous” to procure all the 23 crops for which MSP is announced annually. Others contend that procuring these crops would be a logistical nightmare....

-Scroll.in It is essential for policy makers to understand the crises created by widening INCome inequalities and labour market ruptures. In the context of the current global macro-economic situation, there are three deep currents for the Indian government to be aware of. How it understands and responds to these challenges will shape the country’s socio-economic trajectory over the next few years. The first undercurrent: the deepening of INCome and wealth inequalities. Second: a...

-Hindustan Times The study has been authored by Aditi Roy, PHFI Crop diversity is thought to have small, positive impacts on dietary diversity among farming households, particularly when market access is restricted. Policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic severely restricted market access. To date, no study has explored the relationship between crop and dietary diversity in this context. To address this gap, we used longitudinal data collected from 833 farmers across 12...

-TheWire.in A claim of an 8.4% real GDP growth rate has little relevance even as rural India battles plummeting wage levels, depleted INComes and widespread unemployment. With the release of the GDP figures for the quarter ending September, the government machinery has been in full swing advancing the narrative that economic growth is indeed back on track. However, sorely missing from these narratives is the INConvenient factoid on the currently dismal state of...

-IdeasforIndia.com The Centre has sought an additional Rs. 25,000 crore as funding for MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). Based on simple calculations using official data, Ashwini Kulkarni contends that the actual fund requirement is in fact much higher. As the pandemic continues to adversely impact rural livelihoods, the government should allocate sufficient funds to MNREGA, in order to honour the work-on-demand guarantee. For over a month, national and local...