-Livemint.com Telangana 9th state to declare drought, adding to the agrarian crisis and posing a threat to the rural economy New Delhi: Telangana has declared a drought in parts of the state, becoming the ninth state this year to do so, highlighting the agrarian crisis that could cause a likely fall in the production of rain-fed crops such as pulses, oilseeds and cotton, and result in a further slowing of the...

-FirstPost.com Ram Naresh, who runs a small tea-snacks shop in Navi Mumbai isn’t really keen to discuss politics. “After all, what difference does it make to me? No matter who rules, prices keep going up,” Naresh says. Naresh, hails from a rural village in Uttar Pradesh, is clearly upset with the way prices of Dal and Onion has gone up of late. He gets to save a little from his daily earnings...

-FirstPost.com Even as the Narendra Modi government has been making claims that India’s rural economy has gained pace under his rule, empirical evidence suggests that the health of country’s rural economy may not have improved much on account of declining or stagnant income levels. The situation, experts say, is unlikely to change in the near future as there are low chances of a revival in rural income generation. A survey by brokerage...

-The Indian Express There is evidence to suggest that with a few modifications, MGNREGA can dent poverty. There are few government programmes that excite as much passion as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). For advocates, it is a lifeline for the rural poor. For critics, it is a programme that distorts labour markets and does far more harm than good. In this partisan quicksand, it is hard to...

-The Indian Express My mother does not work”. In country after country, this expression is heard each time someone describes a woman not engaged in paid employment. A recent study by McKinsey, titled “The Power of Parity: How equality for women could drive $ 2 trillion in global growth”, has evidence that every “stay-at-home” woman directly damages a country’s GDP by billions. Its message is that every woman should “work”; India’s...