-The New Indian Express The problem of farmer suicides has assumed a serious proporition. The toll is increasing year after year. According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), as many as 5,650 farmers committed suicide in India last year. This works out to one farmer suicide in every 100 villages or one farmer suicide in every block in the country last year. State-wise, Maharashtra accounted for the highest number of...

-The Indian Express   Reduce Centrally sponsored schemes, specify their objectives and timelines.    A Niti Aayog taskforce chaired by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has apparently recommended that 25 per cent of the funds under Centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) be made available to states as untied monies. If this recommendation is accepted, states would receive a total of Rs 42,000 crore during 2015-16 itself. This recommendation should be viewed in...

-Business Standard Ruling party MPs suggest changes to six of the nine amendments proposed by govt to the 2013 Act The government is set to relent on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015. On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members of a parliamentary joint committee on the Bill suggested amendments that effectively bring back the social impact assessment and consent clauses,...

-The Hindu Employment in villages is largely in agriculture sector, while industrial employment is less than four per cent. The Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE) has advocated transformation and development of “smart villages” across the country to improve standard of living in the rural areas and boost the rural economy. Development of rural India holds the key to the nation’s sustainable economic growth, it said. SCOPE Director-General U.D. Choubey told The Hindu...

-Hindustan Times The picture of rural Indian life today that emerges from what is probably the world's largest study ever of household deprivation is sobering and sombre. It describes a massive hinterland still imprisoned in persisting endemic impoverishment, want, illiteracy and indeed hopelessness. It tells a story that every thinking and caring Indian must heed. Advocates of free markets, opposed to building a welfare state, have long argued that accelerated market-led economic...