-The Tribune The farmer is crying for structural change to make the agriculture sector vibrant so that it serves as a pivot for revival of the rural economy, thereby creating employment opportunities for the youth, says Devinder Sharma After two consecutive years of back-to-back bumper harvest in 2016 and 2017, prices for almost all the crops had crashed forcing the farmers to dump their produce onto the streets at many a places....

-The Indian Express Thomas Piketty points to the widening income disparities that have accompanied economic growth in India, which endanger social stability The paper by Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel, ‘Indian Income Inequality 1922-2014 — From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?’, is now in the public domain. Piketty needs no introduction — his Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been one of the most influential books on economics in the past decade....

-GovernanceNow.com As farmers protests take centre stage across the country, Swaraj Party convenor explains the ecological, economic and existential crisis behind this unrest. * We have recently seen farmers from Tamil Nadu protesting in the national capital. Then Maharashtra farmers protested, deciding not to send their produce to cities. The agitation has now reached Madhya Pradesh, leading to killings. Why there is sudden farmers’ unrest in the country? I think we...

-TheWire.in Statistical analysis suggests that farmers in states that have amended the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act are less likely to commit suicide, but further reforms are needed to reduce the incidence of farmer suicides across the country. Every summer, it is the same old story: drought and farmers committing suicide in India. Between 2012 and 2015, over 10,000 farmers killed themselves. Farmer suicides are a major cause of political contention, despite...

-The Indian Express The Centre is pushing and many states are implementing Direct Benefit Transfers – and encountering little political opposition The entire focus on ushering in a direct benefit transfer (DBT) regime for delivering subsidies to the targeted populations has so far centered around cooking gas, and to some extent, on isolated pilot experiments with food subsidy. Agriculture subsidies, especially on inputs other than fertilisers, have largely escaped attention in...