-The Indian Express He said the government needs pursue health and education efforts in order to build opportunity for and capabilities of people. Nobel laureate and economist Amartya Sen Wednesday said the idea that giving cash to people can help the economy grow misses out on the fact that real economy needs healthy and educated people who can drive growth. He said the government needs pursue health and education efforts in...

-The Indian Express Rahul Gandhi’s proposed scheme will do more harm than good if it comes at the cost of existing subsidies for the poor. Congress president Rahul Gandhi signaled the earnestness of his party’s resolve to end poverty and hunger by announcing an untried policy instrument — a Minimum Income Guarantee for the poor. “Millions of our brothers and sisters” could not be allowed to “suffer the scourge of poverty”...

  The budgetary allocation for Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) as a proportion of total budgetary expenditure has been reduced marginally during the Interim Budget 2019-20. It may have happened because the coverage of gross cropped area under the scheme could not keep pace with the target that was set during the last two years. The Status of Implementation of Budget Announcements 2017-18, which was presented during the Union Budget 2018-19,...

-Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) Land rights structurally escape women. This is a fundamental issue in understanding why women’s work as farmers is largely invisible. However, the large-scale migration of men towards pursuing other non-farm employment opportunities due to the worsening agrarian crisis has pushed more women into this sector. Work is not homogenous and neither are women or their work. Perceiving work through economic lens, the policy framework...

-The Hindu Three out of five farmers in India grow their crops using rainwater, instead of irrigation. However, per hectare government investment into their lands may be 20 times lower, government procurement of their crops is a fraction of major irrigated land crops, and many of the government’s flagship agriculture schemes are not tailored to benefit them. A new rainfed agriculture atlas released this week not only maps the agro biodiversity and...