-Livemint.com BJP’s U-turn on the proposed land Act reflects a re-balancing of deeper political forces that are at work in India’s political economy The recent U-turn by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government on the proposed amendment to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (henceforth the land Act), can be viewed narrowly as a Congress victory in the ongoing tit-for-tat game that is short-changing...

-Hindustan Times With the key Land Acquisition bill stalled by political differences with the Opposition, the Centre may change tack and get states to enact their own land legislation, enabling it to push along the economic reform process.   Finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday that the states that wanted speedy development could take the lead in framing such laws with the Centre's backing, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “political considerations”...

-The Hindu At present, the subsidy is paid to urea producers and importers, not farmers. Consensus continues to elude the Centre on the politically sensitive reform of the urea sector, where it has accumulated an unpaid subsidy bill of Rs. 40,000 crore. Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over a meeting of senior Ministers and officials last Tuesday, which discussed if the subsidy could be provided directly to farmers through the direct benefit transfer...

-Asian Age Children born in India are, on average, shorter than those born in sub-Saharan Africa. Even worse, 255 million Indians remain food insecure, eating less than 2,100 calories daily. Jharkhand reports the lowest per capita calorie intake (1,900 Kcal) in rural areas, while West Bengal hovers similarly (1,851 Kcal) in urban areas. We have attempted to meet this challenge through legislation. Aside from the Right to Food Bill, the landmark...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...