-The Telegraph This year, a combination of factors is hurting the agriculture sector immensely A quiet, reverse transformation is happening in the countryside, and it is disconcerting. This sowing season, growing numbers of farmers are falling back on their bullocks as fuel prices are piercing the roof. The tractor, the symbol of modern farming, is becoming a luxury in the literal sense. The conventional ploughing equipment tied to bullocks costs only a...

-TheWire.in Cooperatives are useful for political parties in two ways – they are a font of funds as well as handy for dispensing patronage.  A day before the reshuffle, Narendra Modi’s National Democratic Alliance government created a new Ministry of Cooperation. It would provide, said its statement, a separate administrative, legal and policy framework for strengthening the cooperative movement in India. A day later, it announced Union home minister Amit Shah would also head...

-ThePrint.in RBI data shows a sharp increase in households borrowing against gold. Other indicators also show higher borrowing. More credit is fine, but vaccination needs priority. The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown has hit household incomes sharply. Households have survived to a large extent by borrowing. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows a sharp increase in households borrowing against gold. In addition to borrowing from the...

In his Mann ki Baat address to the nation on 30th May, 2021, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi appreciated the fact that the farmers received "more than the minimum support price (MSP) for mustard" pertaining to the rabi production. One can easily guess from this statement of the PM that the mustard growers in Haryana (and elsewhere) preferred to sell their produce to private traders in the open market instead...

With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...