-The Indian Express This has been brought about mainly by declining price realisations in basmati paddy and Bt cotton, the two crops profitable enough to make it worthwhile for farmers to expand acreages. Jalandhar: Lease rentals on farmlands in Punjab — India’s granary state — have collapsed, providing the clearest indication of an agricultural downturn and farmers choosing to go back to growing parmal paddy in place of high-risk basmati and cotton...

-The Hindu Confining it to just the Ministry of Rural Development would be the most retrograde step in democratic decentralisation in over a quarter century. If, as The Hindu’s exclusive on Wednesday indicates, Prime Minister Narendra Modi were to close down the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, it would confirm one’s worst fears about his government’s hypocritical approach to grass-roots democracy for grass-roots development. This was a lacuna that was evident in the ‘Gujarat...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's annual toll of premature deaths from air pollution is likely to rise to 1.7 million over the next two decades despite planned initiatives to lower power sector and transport emissions, says a study that highlights the need for more action. Released today by the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the study cautions that rising incomes, urbanisation and industrialisation are raising energy consumption in India and worsening air...

-Hindustan Times It is almost a year since the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), or the Skill India mission, with the aim of giving as many as 2.4 million young Indians industry-relevant training with an elaborate certification scheme. One year is too short a time to assess true progress in a bureaucracy-driven system of the kind India has, but, given the NDA’s earnestness to create jobs by...

-The Indian Express Ministry cites ‘incomplete data’ as primary reason for low placement numbers. “Kaushal Bharat, Kushal Bharat” — it’s with this slogan that the government had launched its ambitious Skill India Mission in July last year, but the transformation from Kaushal to Kushal seems to be faltering at the last mile. While the government claimed to have trained twenty lakh people under its flagship Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), which works...