-The Indian Express The existing MSP-based procurement system is fiscally unsustainable. The time has come to consider market intelligence-based regulation of crop production Farmers are always in distress when prices of their produce are subdued. The response of governments, obviously prompted by political pressures, has been to sharply hike minimum support prices (MSP) of crops or declare loan waivers. Thus, the current government at the Centre has significantly raised the MSPs of...
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Policy must tackle not just dissatisfaction of large farmers, but distress of most vulnerable -Bina Agarwal
-The Indian Express To address farmers' woes, we need a multi-pronged strategy of income support, government investment, and institutional innovations, and not a one-size-fits-all approach. The two main policy interventions repeatedly discussed in recent months to tackle farmer distress — loan waivers and minimum support prices (MSP) — treat all farmers (large/small, male/female) alike. But farmers are heterogeneous. They differ especially by income, land owned and gender. And farmer dissatisfaction is...
More »Why KALIA may be better option than loan waiver in supporting big, small farmers
-Financial Express Even as loan waivers are known to help a small number of farmers, Odisha has come up with a farmer-centric scheme which assists farming on a large and secular scale. It comes at a time when a debate on validity of loan waiver is being discussed across the country. KALIA — a farmer-specific scheme launched by the state — includes payments to everyone from big farmers and landless cultivators...
More »Learning to compete: on Skill India -Santosh Mehrotra & Ashutosh Pratap
-The Hindu Skill India needs a sharp realignment if it is to meaningfully transform people’s life chances In 2013, India’s skill agenda got a push when the government introduced the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF). This organises all qualifications according to a series of levels of knowledge, skills and aptitude, just like classes in general academic education. For instance, level 1 corresponds to Class 9 (because vocational education is only supposed to...
More »ASER: Uptick in primary reading and maths, govt schools script turnaround -Sukrita Baruah and Uma Vishnu
-The Indian Express For the first time since 2010, slightly more than half (50.5%) of all children in Class 5 can read a Class 2 text book, up from 46.9% in 2012. Close to a decade since the Right to Education Act came into force and after years of flagging dismal learning levels, the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2018) holds a glimmer of hope. While most children in...
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