-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...

-The Hindustan Times India's wholesale inflation rate plunged to 2.38% in September, the lowest in five years, aided by a sharp drop in vegetable and petrol prices, data released on Tuesday showed, rekindling hopes that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will cut interest rates soon. The more than one percentage point drop in wholesale inflation rates over August's 3.74% should bring cheer to the NDA government, which rode to a landslide...

-The Times of India PATIALA (Punjab): Even as Haryana is going to elections amid political parties' claims about development, a recently published study in a reputed economic journal has revealed that over 80% farmers in the state are reeling under debt. The study also exposed that nearly a same number of farmers are living below poverty line if one goes by the World Bank's definition of "moderate poverty", which means an earning...

-DNA Yavatmal (Maharashtra): As another election approaches Bothbodan village near Yavatmal tries to confront its own grim future. Two elections have gone by after Vinod Rathod, a cotton farmer in the village committed suicide on January 25, 2003. It was one of the first farmer suicides in the region that sparked off a fate of such suicides which have continued to shock the country and reflects the sorry state of cotton farmers...

-FirstPost.com Farmer suicides haven't gone up in Maharashtra: Why is Modi tweaking data? Prime Minister Narendra Modi is aggressively attempting to make the high incidence of farmers's suicide in Maharashtra an important election issue. The BJP is probably trying to make inroads in rural Maharashtra where it is not known to be strong traditionally. Modi has quoted government statistics to suggest Maharashtra has had more than 10 farmers committing suicide every day. Needless...