-Leaflet.in Analysing the data for COVID-19 prevalence rates, relative population sizes and vaccine coverage across Indian states, RAVI DUGGAL explains why India needs a better and more scientific vaccine disbursal policy, and how to rampantly boost our vaccine production capacity through compulsory licensing. —- AS India enters the third phase of its ambitious COVID-19 vaccination drive, many state governments are reporting vaccine shortages and are having to close down some of their vaccination...

-Countercurrents.org More than half of rural households in India are landless, or almost so. This deprives them of the most obvious asset needed for sustainable livelihoods and food security in villages–farmland. After  agriculture the next most important source of rural livelihood in India is dairy farming but here too the household with farmland has free access to crop residues which is increasingly not available to landless households who  have to incur extra...

-The Indian Express The Indian Express tracks how the National Security Act (NSA) is being abused in Uttar Pradesh over the last two years. * District Magistrate passed orders in a mechanical manner, in some cases merely on the basis of police reports. * The procedural safeguard of effective representation for those detained was seriously infringed. * Individual liberty guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be taken away without proper application of mind. THESE ARE some...

-Financial Express While wheat prices may firm up once the official procurement begins in all the producing states, the government will have to implement a robust procurement system for other crops to support the prices fetched by farmers. Mandi prices of most rabi crops ruled below their minimum support prices (MSPs) during the last month, even as more than half of the winter crop has been harvested (see chart). While wheat prices...

-The Indian Express Jagmohan Singh, general secretary of BKU Dakaunda and member of All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), accused the Centre of trying to “malign the image of farmers”. Ludhiana: In a letter that could trigger a new flashpoint in its ongoing five-month-long face-off with protesting farmers from Punjab, the Centre has asked the state government to take action on the findings of a probe by the BSF that migrant...