-The Hindu Election jolt makes party look at ways to boost rural income; BJP chief commissions survey The defeat in the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh has made the government go back to the drawing board over the issue of rural distress, and some measures to bolster incomes in the countryside may be announced by the end of the winter session of Parliament. While the problems plaguing the agriculture sector...

-The Hindu Forgiveness can play a reparative role provided it is seen as complementary to justice, not a substitute for it Post-Partition, India has witnessed innumerable acts of collective violence of which three clearly stand out as the most barbaric: the Nellie massacre in Assam in 1983; the horrific slaughter of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984; and the diabolical pogrom in Gujarat in 2002. Need for retributive justice No society that calls itself civilised...

-Livemint.com With barely a few months to go for 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the question across political party lines is: what can really be done now, and quickly? New Delhi: When residents gather around the fire on foggy winter evenings in Rampura, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, the conversation often veers toward the declining fortunes in agriculture. Take 27-year-old Pushpendra Singh, who completed his master’s degree in commerce in 2016,...

Passionate about the deepening of agrarian crisis, quite often journalists and media persons cite figures related to farm suicide (as provided by the National Crime Records Bureau) in order to draw the attention of the readers. They do so in the following ways: * Compare the absolute number of farm suicides (viz. suicide by cultivators + suicide by agricultural labourers) across regions/ states for a particular time point or time period...

-Livemint.com As we enter the new year, investors will do well to factor in a moderation in consumption demand due to the liquidity crisis and farm distress Analysts are getting increasingly wary about the outlook for consumption demand, even though investors are brushing aside these risks for now. In its 2019 India outlook, Credit Suisse said it would prefer investment-related stocks over consumption-focused ones in the coming year. The brokerage expects sharp...