-Economic and Political Weekly   The proposed Rangarajan method on measurement of poverty in India borrows elements from three earlier methods - those of Alagh, Lakdawala and Tendulkar. An important departure in the Rangarajan method is to compute the poverty line commodity basket by combining items from two fractile groups to address the relatively higher expenses for some essential non-food items. This, while being statistically plausible, poses a behavioural dilemma, as there...

-The Business Standard Make schemes mobile and portable, by focusing on people and not products India spends close to four per cent of its GDP on an alphabet soup of welfare schemes and subsidies - it has become a welfare state before becoming a developed state. Despite its significant costs, India's welfare system is neither comprehensive nor very effective - subject to huge leakages and corruption, and not well knit into...

-The Hindu ADILABAD (Telengana): With 40 suicides in 100 days, there is an urgent need for farmers to focus on other crops. The scale of finance for cotton is Rs. 24,000 per acre for un-irrigated crop while for red gram, black gram and green gram it is Rs. 11,000, Rs. 9,500 and Rs. 9,750 per acre. Adilabad seems to be holding onto to its position among the top ranking districts in the...

-The Times of India CHANDIGARH/FAZILKA: What was a laughing stock when started 12 years ago is today all set to become a part of the policy the United Nations plan to make for the world. A business model -- Library Model and Radio Taxi Model -- for enabling small and marginal farmers to hire equipment for farm operations at affordable prices was recently showcased in an event of UN in Indonesia...

-The Business Standard WTO reconvenes to re-examine issue of agriculture subsidies, numbers alone suggest that India has a strong case for declining to sign WTO's TFA The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is reconvening in the last week of September to examine the issue of agricultural subsidies against the backdrop of India's refusal to become a signatory to the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) at Bali. Since then, a lot of water has flowed...