-Business Standard The lens with which we report India's farm crisis has to change As we head for another year of trouble in the countryside, it is time to discard the enduring media tropes of rural distress. Like the image of a grizzled Indian farmer, framed against his parched field looking up at an unrelenting sky. Or the all too pervasive conflation of rural distress with farmer suicides. Such characterisation offers the...

-The Hindu Business Line NITI Aayog’s Arvind Panagariya on why allowing the Ordinance on land acquisition to lapse will not hinder the reforms process “With the lapse of the Ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, it is an opportune time to take a fresh look at the land acquisition issue and look for ways forward,” Arvind Panagariya, Vice-Chairman, NITI Aayog, wrote in his blog. Tasked with the responsibility of setting up...

-Economic and Political Weekly After coming to power in 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government took several measures to dilute the pro-poor provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013. Though it has backed down, several questions remain over the way the Modi government has dealt with the issue of land acquisition. Santosh Verma (santosh.econ@gmail.com) is at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. Land acquisition—by private corporations or the state—has raised vital...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has made public the National Health Policy 2015 Draft for discussion. The draft is more exhaustive and better organised in its coverage compared to the National Health Policy of 2002. It touches upon contemporary issues of concern, including the rapid emergence of chronic non-communicable diseases. From the latest available evidence, issues crucial to tackling chronic illness in India are discussed. Subrata...

-The Indian Express Wells dry up across 8 districts, storage down to less than 8%, residents trudge long distances, officials brace for worst drinking water crisis in 40 years. Beed/ Parbhani (Maharashtra): Seventy-year-old Parobai Shinde, carrying an aluminium pot that has seen better days, is briskly walking the 2-km stretch from her home in Manyarwadi village in Georai taluka in Beed district to Bharat Sonmali’s field. Sonmali is reploughing his 30...