-Livemint.com/ HowIndiaLives.com Even as it presses for market reforms in agriculture, the Centre has been actively using the basket of schemes wholly funded by it to widen the social security net for farmers. Expect that to continue in the coming Budget In 2016, the BJP-LED government set itself the target to double farmers’ incomes by 2022. An inter-ministerial committee set up to recommend strategies to meet this target highlighted seven sources of...

-Scroll.in Frustrated by rules they see as onerous, a bunch of beauticians are speaking up – and sometimes being heard. Nidhi Chander* was full of hope until five years ago. That was when she gave up her job as a beautician at a unisex salon in Pitampura, Delhi, where she was earning Rs 20,000 a month, to work with Urban Clap. She believed the home services start-up would give her the freedoms...

-Moneycontrol.com An intense focus on securing market access abroad and promoting Indian goods saw dozens of new products including Himachali millets and Chandauli’s black rice being shipped from India to several new destinations such as the UAE, and Denmark India’s agriculture and allied exports grew at a brisk 21 percent in the first eight months of the current financial year despite broken supply chains and various challenges brought about by the COVID-19...

-The Hindu Business Line/ NetworkIdeas.org In recent years, when the economy as a whole performed poorly, reports on how old and new businesspersons accumulated huge volumes of wealth in short timespans have been commonplace. There is also evidence that conspicuous consumption is on the rise. This has LED observers to conclude that income and wealth inequality in India has increased. Hard evidence on the extent of that increase is difficult to...

-Scroll.in Medical admissions have been paralysed by the government’s inability to offer a rationale for the income criteria used to define economically weaker sections For nearly two weeks now, hospital services in Delhi have been crippLED by a strike by resident doctors over the deadlock in admissions to postgraduate medical courses. On Monday, the police allegedly thrashed and detained protesting doctors, registering a case against them, which prompted their association to announce...