-TheWire.in Aquifers at all levels are being depleted. There is thus an urgent need to review and enact the long-pending model groundwater bill. As Winter tips into summer, the next round of water struggles will begin. By February, hand pumps across rural India will start going dry. People in urban centres, mostly small towns living off small stores of groundwater, will start getting increasingly erratic supply. The government will once again initiate...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...

-Livemint.com Delayed assessment of loss and settlement of claims by insurance companies may have led to farmers losing faith in Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, say analysts New Delhi: Sharad Markad, a lanky teenager from a marginal farming family in Maharashtra, spent the first day of 2019 scrounging for funds. Faced with a drought, the third in the past five years, Markad had taken it upon himself to build a community cattle...

-The Indian Express The Right to Disconnect Bill, 2018: NCP MP Supriya Sule has tabled a Private Members' Bill in the Lok Sabha to secure the 'right to disconnect' or refuse to reply to any call or e-mail beyond work hours or on holidays. In a bid to achieve work-life balance, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Supriya Sule Tuesday tabled a Private Members’ Bill in Lok Sabha to secure the ‘right...

-The Economic Times Milk prices are likely to go up in 2019, cooperative dairies said, as supplies are less than usual during this period. Lower returns to farmers have led to the drop in milk production in Winter, when supplies tend to go up, they said. “Milk prices are bound to increase in 2019. Low stocks of skimmed milk powder (SMP) and a drop in milk supplies compared to previous year are the...