-The Tribune With APMC markets heading towards a collapse, the new set of reforms is aimed at encouraging corporatisation, with big business moving into agriculture, storage and marketing. As the experience of US/Europe shows, when unregulated markets become dominant, small farmers are the first to be pushed out of agriculture. Reiterating what former US Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz (during Ronald Reagan’s rule) had declared: “Get big or get out,” Sonny Perdue, US...

-Hindustan Times Launch a massive programme to rehabilitate returnee migrants; allocate an additional Rs 50,000 crore for MGNREGS; extend the free ration scheme for six more months; revive and strengthen public systems of service deliver; RBI should give a directive to banks to extend a top-up loan of Rs 10,000 crore to Self-help Groups After the Covid-19 outbreak, 66% of rural households fell short of cash for food. About 40% reduced their...

-The Indian Express While the over 3% agriculture growth in the first quarter factored in strong Rabi procurement, with high-price realisations getting reflected in the output numbers, fresh data from mandis indicate a slide in the prices of the intercrop produce — horticulture, milk and poultry etc. The rural sector may have held out the only sliver of hope amid the broader collapse in the first-quarter GDP numbers but there are fresh...

-Press Note by People's Action for Employment Guarantee dated September 10th, 2020 MGNREGA during the pandemic and beyond: Implementation highlights, concerns and questions and demands for parliamentarians We are confronting an unprecedented crisis in the history of modern India. On the one hand, the increasing number of COVID cases point to a dubious distinction for India on the world stage. On the other hand, the unplanned lockdown has resulted in a massive...

-Livemint.com Rural India was battling economic difficulties even before the pandemic. The pandemic-induced lockdown increased hardships even further. The historic contraction in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) figure for the June-ended quarter has raised several questions on what the future holds, and what that contraction has meant for ordinary people. Macro-economic statistics can often fail to capture the diverse realities of a country as large as India, and hence it is useful...