-Hindustan Times The animating impulse of Indian politics, pundits of all stripes insist, is youthful aspiration: fearless young people throwing off the shackles of caste and class to Whatsapp their way to what the Prime Minister likes to call “vikas”. Parties like the Bharatiya Janta Party understand this, the argument goes, and are handsomely rewarded; the opposition doesn’t, and is doomed to failure. But a recent CSDS-KAS survey paints a rather different picture:...

-Livemint.com Farm loan waivers are a bad idea. They were a bad idea in 2008 when the UPA was in power, and continue to be so in 2017 with the NDA in power Several parts of India are in the grip of an agrarian crisis. In part, this is because of the cumulative effect of bad monsoons. Farmers in many parts of India are still dependent on the annual rains which were deficient...

-The Indian Express UP’s farm loan waiver could prompt other states to follow suit, evade real reasons for agricultural distress The new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, has hit the ground running. In his first cabinet meeting, he took three important decisions with regard to farmers. First, he waived farm loans of more than Rs 36,000 crore, primarily of the small and marginal farmers who comprise 92 per cent of the...

-The Hindu ‘Time to build consensus on not making such poll promises’ Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel on Thursday stressed the need for building a national consensus on loan waiver schemes. Addressing a press conference here, he said this was needed so that promises such as loan waivers are not made during elections. “We need to create consensus so that such loan waiver promises are eschewed. Otherwise, sub-sovereign fiscal challenges in...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi today asked the BJP "not to play politics with farmers" by waiving loans in Uttar Pradesh alone as agrarian distress was a national crisis and the Centre should come up with a "national" response. Although Rahul described the Uttar Pradesh government's decision as a "step in the right direction", he alleged inaction by the Narendra Modi government by tweeting: "I am happy the BJP has finally...