-The Financial Express There is by now substantial agreement amongst analysts that a strategy for dal production which ensures supplies and a reasonable degree of self-reliance is sorely needed, and the country cannot go from one crisis to another without a well-worked-out policy. However, the discussion is flawed on its assessments of what governments can and cannot do and on the lack of a short and medium strategy to enhance production....

-TheWire.in The spectacle of ‘fixing’ India’s illegal economy is not only harming common citizens but also turning small investors away from financial markets. Depending on who is talking, the demonetisation of higher value currency notes by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has either been described by commentators as a ‘bold move’, ‘landmark policy’, ‘game-changer’ and even a ‘political masterstroke’ or has been labelled the single most high-risk political gamble undertaken since the...

-The Indian Express Agriculture’s contribution to poverty reduction is five times more than that of metropolitan centres Speaking at the third BRICS Urbanisation Forum in Visakhapatnam on September 14, Deputy Chairman of the Niti Ayog, Arvind Panagariya, announced that “Without cities we can’t grow rapidly”. He added, “urbanisation plays an important role in poverty alleviation”. Both claims are exaggerated and somewhat misleading. A recent report prepared for the UN points out that, over...

-TheWire.in Each time a small farmer migrates to an urban area, it means one food producer less and one food consumer more. Rome: Now that world attention is focused on the fast growing process of urbanisation, with two in three people estimated to be living in Towns and cities by the year 2030, an old “equation” jumps rapidly to mind: each time a small farmer migrates to an urban area, it equals...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: A first of its kind study on the state of India’s small Towns – those with a population of less than one lakh – has come up with a grim picture of these mushrooming urban settlements. Though the numbers of such Towns have grown by 157 % -- from 2223 in 1961 to 5705 in 2011, they have “enormous backlogs” when it comes to basic infrastructure and socio-economic...