-The Hindu Several interventions are needed on the demand and supply side to alleviate farm distress Loan waivers remain the preferred solution for governments to tackle farm distress. S. Mahendra Dev and M. Govinda Rao talk about the inability of governments to think of long-term solutions to tackle farm distress, in a discussion moderated by Vikas Dhoot. Edited excerpts: * Despite farm productivity rising, severe distress in the sector is a concern. How...

-TheWire.in A study has raised questions raised over the quality of the MCA-21 database, which is a crucial part of the new GDP series math. New Delhi: A National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report has highlighted deficiencies in key government database of Indian companies, an observation that economists say could have consequences for the credibility of India’s GDP numbers. A technical study conducted by the NSSO between June 2016 and June 2017,...

-The Hindu Business Line India’s Protection of Plant Varieties Act spells out rights of farmers vis-a-vis breeders, which resulted in a pushback for PepsiCo The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act (PPVFRA), which introduced intellectual property protection in Indian agriculture, faced its biggest test in its implementation phase of nearly a decade and a half, when PepsiCo India initiated legal proceedings against four farmers in Gujarat for “illegally” growing...

-Livemint.com * A third of the firms in MCA-21 database used to calculate GDP found dodgy * Results from the MCA-21 database survey were so disappointing that two reports based on it had to be junked NEW DELHI: A key database introduced in India’s new gross domestic product (GDP) series has now been found to be full of holes, raising fresh questions over the controversial and contested GDP numbers in Asia’s third-largest economy. A...

-The Telegraph Shelters that can function as a a school or a vegetable market Kharagpur: Two IIT Kharagpur professors who have designed the shelters that saved thousands of lives after Cyclone Fani hit Odisha last Friday said the lessons of the 1999 supercyclone were the trigger behind their project. Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, professor of civil engineering department at the institute, and Gopal Chandra Mitra, a visiting professor at the department, took one-and-a-half years...