-The Financial Express It is expected that the measures announced in the Budget will boost agricultural output and rural incomes It appears that Budget FY17 has not generated enough excitement in media, academics and the masses, including farmers. Currently, farm distress is a serious concern in the country. The livelihood security of the rural population is in peril. Farmers are in dire need of substantial help to come out of the crisis-like...

-TheHansIndia.com Anantapur: The Telugu Desam government’s pet subsidised rice scheme conceived by the party’s founder N T Rama Rao has helped the party ride to Power several times in the past. But the same scheme is now being watered down by the beneficiaries themselves, both eligible and ineligible, apart from the deep nexus between the dealers and black marketeers. About 40 percent of both eligible and ineligible ration cardholders are actually defeating...

-The Hindu Business Line Ten years on, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act endures because it provides the poor a political voice February 2016 marks a decade since India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) came into force. NREGA is both revolutionary and modest; it promises every rural household one hundred days of employment annually on public-works projects, but the labour is taxing and pays minimum wage, at best. Many charges have...

-CaravanMagazine.in Political realities blunt Narendra Modi’s attack on the NREGA At the end of December 2015, the central rural development ministry was in a state of panic. Nine of India’s largest states had declared drought in several districts. The scant kharif harvest meant many farm labourers, who might have been employed on fields, went without work. Water was so scarce that many farms weren’t sowing a winter crop, further diminishing employment...

-The Hindu A recent study by researchers at the University of Michigan, published in the Economic and Political Weekly, provides insights into how Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s online image was constructed and evolved over time. By analysing data from @narendramodi Twitter handle — official account of Mr. Modi — researchers found that a combination of carefully crafted tweets and strategic follow-backs to other Twitter accounts helped Modi build a Powerful online...