-Hindustan Times Launch a massive programme to rehabilitate returnee migrants; allocate an additional Rs 50,000 crore for MGNREGS; extend the free ration scheme for six more months; revive and strengthen public systems of service deliver; RBI should give a directive to banks to extend a top-up loan of Rs 10,000 crore to Self-help Groups After the Covid-19 outbreak, 66% of rural households fell short of cash for food. About 40% reduced their...

-The Indian Express Consider this: From April to August, over 83 lakh additional households or 1.6 crore persons joined the NREGA labour force by getting job cards, taking the number of families under the scheme to an all-time high of 14.36 crore. This summer, as millions of migrants returned to their villages amid a rise in Covid cases, another chart climbed steadily: the number of households enrolled under the Mahatma Gandhi National...

-Livemint.com Rural India was battling economic difficulties even before the pandemic. The pandemic-induced lockdown increased hardships even further. The historic contraction in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) figure for the June-ended quarter has raised several questions on what the future holds, and what that contraction has meant for ordinary people. Macro-economic statistics can often fail to capture the diverse realities of a country as large as India, and hence it is useful...

-Centre for Science and Environment * Niti Aayog vice chairperson Rajiv Kumar releases the report, which provides the real picture of organic farming in India: only 2 per cent of India’s net sown area organically farmed, and a mere 1.3 per cent of farmers registered to do organic farming * Organic and natural farming must be upscaled to make Indian agriculture sustainable, says the report * Needs to be turned into a mass...

Often exports made by a country to the rest of the world are seen in a positive light by us. It is because exports not only earn precious foreign currencies (that can be used for importing goods and services or simply be used for building forex reserves), it also helps in generating effective demand for goods and services produced in that country and hence, contributes to economic or GDP growth....