-NITI Aayog Working Paper, ISBN: 978-81-953811-7-3 Abstract -  The importance of agriculture in an economy usually declines as it climbs the development ladder. Raising agriculture productivity has been known to be an important precursor. Labour productivity in agriculture can either be increased by higher land productivity or higher land availability per farmer and mechanisation. In India, however, the dramatic increase in land productivity through industrial farming has caused severe environmental damage and...

-Down to Earth With sustainable development goals in place, increasing democratisation and connectivity of the world, ecologisation of politics and vice-versa will become the new norm Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai wrote: In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may  seem so obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and  peace. Decreasing resource base and the  struggle for control and power leads to politicising ecological issues...

-TheWeek.in Well-off are doing fine; stagflation confined to middle and lower-middle classes Kaushik Basu, former chief economic adviser to the government and former chief economist of the World Bank, is currently teaching at Cornell University in the US. In an exclusive interaction, he talks about the current challenges before the Indian economy and its future growth prospects. Excerpts: Q/ Is the Indian economy moving in the right direction? A/ The performance of the Indian...

-The Telegraph The three population groups number above 450 million, or a population greater than that of the US New Delhi: Adivasis, Dalits and Muslims in India have lower life expectancy than higher caste Hindus, a study has found, underlining how social exclusion and discrimination might be contributing to health disparities. Life expectancy is on an average about four years shorter in Adivasis, three years shorter in Dalits and around a year shorter...

-The Hindu Audits, transparency and citizen-centric accountability need to be a part of fund support and disbursement Every COVID-19 wave in India has brought us face to face with the dire precarity of life and livelihood for India’s vast numbers of unorganised workers, and the inadequate response of the state and society to their plight. The latest global OXFAM inequality report highlights how India’s billionaires have grown dramatically in numbers and wealth,...