-The Hindu Business Line Eleven years since its inception, the State’s farmer’s debt relief commission has quietly eased the burden of debt on poor farmers, and grown to be a model worth emulating Earlier this week 35,000 debt-ridden farmers coursed through Maharashtra, walking 180 km on blistered soles, to converge at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan demanding freedom from debt and fair compensation for their produce. As the government scrounged for solutions, it could’ve...

  A national-level public hearing, which was organized at the Gandhi Peace Foundation (Delhi) on 15th March, 2018, has revealed that the intended beneficiaries of various entitlement-based welfare schemes and programmes of the Central government are witnessing difficulties and impediments in accessing the benefits and services. During the public hearing, which was organized by the Right to Food Campaign along with partnering grassroots-level organizations, poor and marginalized citizens from across 14 states...

-Press Release by Right to Food Campaign dated 15 March, 2018 Delhi: Today people from 14 states testified about their situation of hunger and unemployment in a national public hearing at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, organised by the Right to Food Campaign. These testimonies were heard by a panel comprising of activists, journalists, lawyers, legislators, scholars and trade union leaders. Denial of ration to eligible households The hearing began with testimonies from...

-Livemint.com RBI’s regulatory powers over PSU banks are weaker than those over the private sector banks, says Urjit Patel, putting the onus of tackling bank frauds such as the one at PNB on the finance ministry Mumbai: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel broke his silence on Wednesday on the PNB fraud, putting up a blistering defence for the regulator and sought to put the onus on the finance ministry...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The national rural job scheme is set to witness the lowest wage revision since the project was launched. The Union finance ministry is learnt to have rejected a proposal to change the formula for revising the wage rate for 2018-19 under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for 2018-19. The rates in 10 states, including Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, are expected to remain unchanged,...