-International Business Times Bone-dry India’s water crisis seems to bringing the 2015 blockbuster film “Mad Max” to life. Apart from a deteriorating quality of life, countless diseases and loss of economic opportunities, India’s lack of water is also causing a plethora of social ills. Two successive years of droughts have resulted in India’s water crisis worsening by the minute, with a whopping 75.8 million Indians -- five percent of the country’s population...

-The Indian Express The MGNREGA was inspired by the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, passed in 1977, wherein policymakers found wage employment as the best way to empower people against drought As India faces the onslaught of another severe drought, and water, food, and employment dry up, the government will claim that it is doing its best to cope with the adversity. But, given the facts, that will be a patently false...

-NDTV BEED: Gopinath Sonawane, a 52-year-old farmer from Ashti in Maharashtra’s Beed district, has been tilling his land under the scorching sun every week for four years but has little to show for his hard work. “Water supply has been extremely irregular here. Whether or not there is water, we have no choice but to work on our lands and hope for the best because what are the other alternatives?’ asks Gopinath. In...

-The Economic Times The contiguous arid region of southern Maharashtra, Karnataka, western Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is facing a second season of severe drought, even as the rest of the country has managed to sow some crop in the October to December rabi season. Of the four states, Karnataka, with the second largest arid zone after Rajasthan, is the worst hit and has gone to the Centre seeking a bailout of...

-The Hindu Business Line The Economic Survey’s efforts to link ‘excess’ labour regulation to this practice do not stand up to scrutiny The Economic Survey has unconvincingly linked the practise of contract labour to an excess of labour regulation — what it calls ‘regulatory cholesterol’. The Survey alleges that to negotiate the regulatory “cholesterol” in labour law firms resort to contract labour. This is a contestable view. According to the Survey, extensive use...