-Outlook In the last two decades, more than 300,000 farmers have ended their lives. What can be done? Indian agriculture is important as it feeds an estimated 1.3 billion population of the country and is also burdened with the responsibility of providing livelihoods to 60 per cent of the people — 780 million people. No foreign country can produce this mammoth quantity of food and supply to India nor any sector...

-Business Standard While the task force did not categorically say which methodology should be adopted, it said it would make its recommendation within six months after consulting all stakeholders including states Keeping the issue of poverty line open, a task force of NITI Aayog has questioned the possibility of substituting the line with the data on deprivation given by the socio economic and caste census (SECC). While the task force did not...

-The Hindu Business Line We need a holistic policy to address India’s housing shortage issue With the Union Cabinet clearing a ₹81,975-crore plan to build one crore houses in rural areas over the next three years under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)-Rural, the Narendra Modi government has given concrete backing to its promise of achieving universal coverage in housing by 2022. While providing housing for all has been the dream of...

-Down to Earth Activists have been demanding that the land reforms Bill be brought in Parliament since 2012 Following a two-day protest by more than a thousand landless rural poor at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, activists claim Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured protestors that the government will bring the Bill supporting homestead land rights for them before the Parliament. Land rights activists, who met the prime minister at the...

-Livemint.com The government relies on for-profit big business to deliver public goods despite their inability to deliver Can we listen to the budget as an annual public statement by the government of its economic and social philosophy and intent? The centre abandoned five-year plans that earlier laid down a road map of where government policies are headed. The budget, then, is an important reality check of whether the government is literally...