-The Indian Express At a time when the NDA government's moves to prune spending on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and to limit its scope has brought the focus back on the gaps in the scheme's implementation, data with the Ministry of Rural Development show over 70 per cent wages have not been paid on time under the scheme so far this financial year. As per a presentation made...

-The Hindu Business Line Mehsana (Gujarat): A monocropping culture, driven by healthy returns, threatens to hurt cotton farmers in Mehsana and other districts in the country's largest cotton-producing State, say agriculture experts working in the region. As the price of cotton slips due to excess supply and China scaling back on purchases, farmers in north Gujarat risk mounting their losses and the likelihood of reduced sowing in May. They had increased cotton...

-Livemint.com End of the commodity super cycle, with cotton prices touching record lows, adds to growers' woes in Telangana Hyderabad/Warangal: On New Year's eve, Jinukula Rajasekhar, a young farmer from Shamirpet village in Warangal district of Telangana, consumed a lethal combination of alcohol and profenofos, an insecticide sprayed on crops to kill pests. He died four days later in hospital. "On the evening of 31 December he called me from the field...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government is all set to give a digital boost to the flagship rural jobs programme by providing tablets to 2.65 lakh gram panchayats in the country to monitor its implementation. The mobile monitoring of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) will cost the Centre about Rs 265 crore, with the rural development ministry distributing tablets costing Rs 10,000 each to...

-The Indian Express The 10th edition of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) by Pratham, released last week, shows that over the last decade, basic learning levels for children in elementary school in India have remained low. Only about half of Class V children in rural India can read a simple Class II level text, and a similar proportion can do a two-digit subtraction problem with borrowing. While there are...