-Livemint.com It has repeatedly failed to protect the domestic food security agenda The cabinet’s approval of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) on Wednesday is, on the face of it, a relatively innocuous development. As WTO deals go, this is low-hanging fruit. The agreement is to reduce administrative barriers at ports and customs, reducing transactional costs of international trade and consequently—according to various studies—increasing global gross domestic product...

-Down to Earth The BJP-led government's change of heart for big-ticket rural programmes says a lot about its dwindling political fortune India's current political season has a nostalgic tint. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has apparently met party leaders to kickstart a campaign against the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA’S) overt efforts to softly kill the erstwhile government’s flagship programmes. Particularly, the NDA government’s political decisions to not pursue the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

-The Hindu There will be a unified national database of beneficiaries that can be updated in real-time and automatically trigger new benefits. The government has drawn up an ambitious plan to scale up the present regime for direct transfer of benefits to the poor under various welfare schemes, by creating a unified national database of beneficiaries that can be updated in real-time and automatically trigger new benefits such as vaccine shots for...

-The Indian Express Building on the Jan Dhan framework, India should move from price to income support Financial inclusion is an important policy pillar of the Narendra Modi government to ensure inclusive development (sabka saath, sabka vikas). What it means, in brief, is to mainstream financial services for the masses, especially credit at affordable costs from institutional sources. This is not the first time financial inclusion is being given a thrust. Various...

-The Hindu Maternity entitlements are an important policy tool for encouraging better maternal health. This is why we need to do away with conditionality in cash transfer schemes Since the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed in 2013, policy circles have been buzzing with talk of reforms in the public distribution system (PDS). Less well appreciated is the NFSA’s potential to call attention to, and help address, poor maternal nutrition — an aspect...