-The Economic Times BAREILLY / MEERUT (U.P.): Many of us might think that our lives can continue as usual since there is more than a month left to link Aadhaar with various financial accounts and documents. But did you know that there has been an increasing number of cases were people have been denied basic benefits because they do not have the 12-digit unique identity number. In a recent episode, according...

-The Economic Times Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has given ample hint that Budget 2018 is going to be a farmer's Budget. Jaitley has said the agriculture sector is the top priority for the government because the country's economic growth is not justifiable and equitable unless the benefits were clear and evident in the farm sector. After launching options trading in guar seed on commodity exchange NCDEX yesterday, Jaitley said, "We see in...

-The Hindu India must exploit the potential of this technology to help farmers meet irrigation needs In the past few years, solar pumps have consistently piqued the interest of various bureaucrats and politicians. The Prime Minister spoke about solar pumps from the ramparts of the Red Fort in 2016. There is no shortage of ideas which the Centre, States, civil society organisations, and enterprises are adopting to enhance penetration of solar for...

-The Economic Times Politicians in India firmly believe that the woes of farmers can be solved with freebies: free electricity, free water, farm loan waivers, fertilisers and seed subsidies, minimum support prices, etc. Little attention is paid to what really ails Indian agriculture: low productivity. From rice to wheat to coarse grains and pulses, from cash crops to food crops, Indian agriculture is punctured with very low productivity. Let's start with rice....

-The Hindu Business Line Who would know better than Shaktikanta Das, the former secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs, the ‘Good, Bad, and Ugly’ side of demonetisation and GST, the two factors that disrupted the balance sheets of not only the government and corporates but also that of the common man. Das would like to call it “positive disruption” as he believes that the turbulence caused was short-term, and that...