-IDROnline.org Agriculture value-chains can only be strengthened by listening to multiple actors; most importantly, farmers. India has been Witnessing a spate of month-long farmer protests across the country, particularly in the national capital, against the recently introduced farm bills by the central government. One of the major reasons behind these agitations, including calls for repealing the law, is that farmers were not actively involved in the policymaking cycle of these laws, which...

-The Hindu State intimidation of protesting groups cannot serve as a substitute for political dialogue The NIA’s decision to summon people associated with the ongoing farmers agitation as ‘Witnesses’ in a sedition case is definitely out of the ordinary, even if not entirely surprising. Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu and farmers’ leader Baldev Singh Sirsa are among 40 people it has summoned in connection with a fresh case registered on December 15, 2020...

-The Indian Express As the problem of non-performing assets persists in a sector stressed by the pandemic, the RBI Governor has agreed to look at a proposal for creating a bad bank. What are the arguments for and against the concept? Mumbai, New Delhi: The idea of setting up a bad bank to resolve the growing problem of non-performing assets (NPAs), or loans on which borrowers have defaulted, is back on the...

A recent report by Christian Aid -- an international NGO based out of London -- says that the world was not just hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it actually faced massive loss of lives and livelihoods owing to the intensification of the ongoing climate crisis. Climate-related disasters varied from fires in Australia and the United States, floods in China, India and Japan to storms in Europe and the...

-The Indian Express The state has taken up 1.31 lakh works under the scheme in the past 9 months till December 31, 2020 including some spill over works of the last financial year out of which only 19,612 works (around 15 per cent of the total taken up works) could be completed till date. Jalandhar: Despite generating 269 lakh person days and starting on a good note despite Covid-19, Punjab has only...