-The Indian Express Will include clause to protect rights of labourers during closure of factories, says labour minister Mumbai: Three months after it proposed to ease norms for closure of factories, the Maharashtra government is now planning to revise its proposal to make it easier for factory owners with less than 150 employees to close down, instead of the 300 employees as proposed earlier. The government said it would also include a...

-Hindustan Times Farmers have experienced a growing mismatch between their production efforts and incomes under the Narendra Modi government. The coming union budget will have to find a balance between two contradictory FDs: farm-distress and fiscal discipline. The choice is not going to be an easy one. Ignoring farm-distress in the last full-fledged budget before elections could be politically suicidal. Meanwhile, there are at least two things that could make the government slip...

-Business Today Social sector spending and investments in infrastructure development could be the highlights of the forthcoming Union Budget 2018-19, credit rating agency ICRA forecasts. It expects increase in budgetary allocations for social infrastructure and social security spending, such as NREGA (rural job security), food subsidy (food security), insurance schemes and welfare pensions. Larger allocations for infrastructure related to cold chains, etc., considered to boost the agricultural sector and the rural...

-The Indian Express Price deficiency payment schemes in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana do not cover farmers’ losses. Telangana’s input support scheme deserves nation-wide emulation. Farm distress is likely to be one of the major focal points of the upcoming Union Budget. Agri-GDP growth has fallen to around 2 per cent per annum in the first four years of the Modi government; the real incomes of farmers have fallen as well. The growth...

-Deccan Chronicle As per the CM’s dashboard, the average wage achieved across the state is 86.18 per cent, and average days achieved is 62.92 per cent Vijayawada: The state government is examining the mode of MGNREGA payments and also investigating the reasons behind the delay of payments to the workers. It is observed by the chief secretary that five districts have paid more towards material components. The state government is worried about...