-The Telegraph New Delhi: Amid cow vigilantism, a professor of economics specialising in agrarian issues today wondered aloud whether those demanding a nationwide ban on cow slaughter had thought about its fallout, more so as a beginning had been made with the restrictions on the sale of animals for slaughter at cattle markets. A calculation by professor Vikas Rawal of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University's School...

-The Times of India Continuing suicides and intermittent protests by farmers across the country prompted the Supreme Court on Thursday to ask why the much publicised Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMBFY) had not provided relief to the hapless farmers. While the government said that it is the first year and they are ironing out the problems, a look at the details of this first year's implementation throws up more systemic...

-VillageSquare.in Given the complex and varied situations in rural India, the results of the direct benefit transfer method are so far mixed at best and debilitating at worst, as seen in the subsidies for farm equipment and fertilizers Direct benefit transfer (DBT), a system through which government programs transfer funds directly to bank accounts of beneficiaries, is hailed as a major intervention that is expected to cut a whole lot of misdirection...

-TheWire.in Legislative action that primarily looks at cattle mobility as ‘acts of smuggling cattle out of state for slaughter’ is deeply misguided and betrays a misunderstanding of how India’s cattle have been bought and sold since the British Raj. Like many poorly drafted laws, the recently notified Livestock Markets (Regulation) Rules is so pre-occupied with its self-righteousness that it fails to realise the harm that it would cause. If the colonial era’s...

-The Hindu Our education system has failed to integrate the rural into the larger political community, the nation Rural Mandsaur, where five persons were killed during a demonstration recently, is a prosperous region of western Madhya Pradesh. More than a decade ago, I had the opportunity of spending two days with the children of a private residential school in Mandsaur. At that time, it was the only English-medium residential school. Its vast and...