-India Infoline News Service   Mumbai: Efforts at the central and state government level to improve rural infrastructure, food distribution and non-agricultural employment opportunities are credit positive because, if sustained, they are likely to lower the credit challenges that India's vulnerability to drought poses. Moody's Investor's Service says that although India (Baa3 positive) may avoid drought this year, its economy remains vulnerable to future droughts or fluctuations in rainfall, and its sovereign credit...

-The Indian Express   It has only managed to kill manufacturing and employment growth    In the 1950s, misapplied economic policies gave India one of the lowest growth rates in the world for 30 years, and left it behind East and Southeast Asia. Now another set of policies is completing its economic ruin. The architect of this is the RBI and its instrument of choice, the interest rate. Indian business has been begging for a...

-Livemint.com Effective policy changes at the state-level are needed as this is where the problem and its solutions lie—and not in a National Agricultural Market There have been many attempts at alleviating the pain of the farmer in India, be it natural calamities or market risks, but nothing seems to work, and the problems of farmer distress and indebtedness continue to grow. For some time now, there has been a focus...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...

-Economic and Political Weekly A number of state agencies and non-governmental organisations have come forward to facilitate farmers/breeders to register their crop varieties and obtain plant variety certifi cates. But can these agencies bring forth a change in the mindset of the small farmers and seed savers' groups who view the current intellectual property regime with scepticism and continue to keep away from it? Shalini Bhutani (shalinibhutani@hotmail.com) is a legal researcher and...