-TheWire.in More than 550 jobs were lost each day in the last four years in India, placing it behind Bangladesh and Vietnam in terms of job creation. The sheer pressure of poverty means that job creation will always be high on the agenda of any government. In India, significant public resources have been invested to encash the demographic dividend and prevent it from becoming a burden. But the results have been far...

-The Hindu Business Line The electronic-National Agriculture Market is a sound idea but implementation is at a nascent stage Farmers in Telangana staged a protest last Monday, demanding discontinuation of the electronic-national agriculture market (e-NAM) platform and restoration of the previous platform provided by NCDEX e-Markets. It followed the failure of the software to accommodate the heavy volumes of the peak season arrivals, beginning with maize and soyabean. The Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC)...

-The Hindu Business Line This kharif, with its high pulses output, provides an opportunity to push procurement, processing — and lift curbs on exports Pulses have been in the news over the last one year and for all the wrong reasons. Sharply lower harvests two years in a row (2014-15 and 2015-16) due to a below-normal southwest monsoon in the kharif season and unseasonal rains during the rabi harvest combined with rising...

-Livemint.com Courts are finally protecting individual liberty in prohibition and beef ban cases The politics of alcohol consumption and cow slaughter have, of late, run roughshod over issues of constitutional law and philosophy. The Patna high court’s recent judgement on prohibition in Bihar—especially when read together with the Bombay high court’s earlier beef ban verdict—is a necessary redressal of the balance. These judgements are a nuanced look at how the relationship...

-The Hindu The proposed labour reforms seek to weaken worker protection at a time when the Indian economy is not creating enough jobs, and the right kind of jobs. On September 2, 10 trade unions in India organised what was said to be one of the largest labour strikes in history. An estimated 120 million workers took part. The unions were protesting against the government’s unwillingness to grant a 12-point charter of...