-The Hindu Business Line BusinessLine goes to villages, including those visited in 2014, to understand the progress of the ambitious National Optical Fibre Network. Unused infrastructure and low awareness tell a story of missed links In one corner of the Ramnagar village panchayat office, in Panisagar block of Tripura, is a defunct four-year-old computer. The machine, connected with a 10 mbps broadband line was supposed to bring digital services to this remote...

-BBC KM Yadav has helped hundreds of Indian villagers access crucial government information that has helped them claim their benefits and rights. Vikas Pandey meets him at his "office" in Chaubepur village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Mr Yadav is patiently listening to a group of villagers as he serves them hot tea from his stall. This tea stall is indistinguishable from the many others dotted across India's towns and villages...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: NITI Aayog, the government's premier think-tank, is set to introduce a model law on Land lease that will not only improve agricultural efficiency but also quicken the pace of industrialisation. The model law will offer flexibility to Land owners and tenants to decide on the term of lease and rent, thus making it simpler for the government to lease Land for public-private partnership projects in sectors other...

-The Indian Express Yes, except that farmers suffer rules other businessmen never encounter Agriculture is said to be India’s largest private-sector enterprise, engaging nearly 119 million farmers (“cultivators”) and another 144 million Landless labourers, as per the 2011 Census. It is even considered the most respectable business, going by the oft-quoted slogan “uttam kheti, madhyam vyapar, kanishtha naukri (supreme is farming, mediocre is trade and most lowly is service)”. But the exalted...

-The Telegraph The recent budget talked about the government's plan to double farm incomes in the next five years. This will be done through investments in rural infrastructure, especially irrigation. About 50 per cent of Land under foodgrain production in India is irrigated. This means that half of the foodgrain producing Land in India faces weather uncertainties and, hence, those working on them face annual (seasonal) variations in income. These variations...