-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...

-TheWire.in The national auditor believes that such methods allow the Centre to understate the true fiscal and revenue deficits in a given year. New Delhi: India’s national auditor has raised red flags over the Narendra Modi government’s propensity to borrow funds using “off-budget” methods, a practice that allows it to finance capital and revenue spending while maintaining deficit targets. The criticism comes from an audit report tabled in parliament on Tuesday, but is...

  In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...

-The Hindu Business Line The Centre and States must eschew the politically expedient option of loan waivers and look for long-term solutions The sweeping wave of loan waivers has generated serious debates across the country on their economics and likely outcomes. Till date 12 States have announced loan waiver amounting to more than Rs.2 lakh crore. Loan waiver cannot be a solution to address the agrarian crisis, instead the government must look for...

-The Hindu SC orders govt to file affidavit detailing steps so far taken in Lokpal appointment process New Delhi: The government informed the Supreme Court on Friday that a eight-member search committee has been constituted in September 2018 for zeroing in on eligible candidates for Lokpal and the anti-corruption authority will frame its own rules of functioning. The panel is led by former Supreme Court judge, Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai. On September 27,...