-The Financial Express By setting the target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022, the prime minister has clearly signalled a transition in agri-food policy from an excessive emphasis on foodgrain production towards improving welfare of the farming community. Given the continued excessive employment pressure, proliferation of small landholdings and growing agrarian crisis, this move is indeed an important change in the policy landscape. Doubling farmers’ income, however, requires identification of high-income...

-The Indian Express As Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath hits the road for civic polls, The Indian Express travels across the state to track the change he’s brought. Lucknow: Barely 500 m from the half-samadhi half-mazaar that is the monument to poet Kabir, Mohammad Asad tells a story about the growing number of abandoned cattle in the Maghar kasba of Sant Kabir Nagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh. “A truck comes here at...

-Scroll.in With reports of abandoned cows destroying crops, the state’s cow protection panel has proposed penalties on owners who set them free. The Bharatiya Janata Party is scrambling to contain the fallout of its efforts to prevent the slaughter of cows, which have distorted rural economies in unforeseen ways. To deal with one unexpected consequence, a Madhya Pradesh government panel has now recommended penalties for farmers who abandon their cattle. This highlights...

-The Indian Express The government’s move in May triggered outrage, notably from states such as Kerala, since the rules prohibited sale of cattle for slaughter at animal markets. New Delhi: Four months after its plan of notifying a ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets met with opposition from several states, the Centre has decided to try a different approach — it is now asking states to write...

-CaravanMagazine.in How political rhetoric has drowned out the economic realities of cattle-slaughter bans In mid August, news broke that more than 200 cows had starved to death in a shelter in Chhattisgarh owned by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader named Harish Verma. After the reports appeared, Verma protested that he had not received funds that the government had promised him for the shelter. But the irony could not have been starker. The BJP...