-The Times of India   AMRITSAR: The first budget presented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has deflated the expectations of farmers who were looking for 'achhe din' ahead. With a major chunk of farmers reeling under debt, famers and their leaders were disappointed on finding that the finance minister's speech was silent on measures to address the crucial issue of farmer suicides. "In Punjab, the state government's official figures put the farmers'...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Economic Survey 2013-14 released in New Delhi today has highlighted several challenges and reforms required in the agriculture sector. The Economic Survey states that as a concomitant of growth, the share of agriculture and allied sector in gross domestic product (GDP) declined to 15.2% during the Eleventh Plan and further to 13.9% in 2013-14 (provisional estimates-PE). While it still accounts for about 54.6% of...

-Economic and Political Weekly This paper identifies the channels and processes which have increased the vulnerability of employment in the organised manufacturing sector. It explores the exemptions from specific labour regulations accorded to particular activities and locates the anti-labour positions in the arbitration mechanisms under the state and judicial reinterpretations of existing laws. The popular discourse on labour regulation in India has been arguing in favour of labour market flexibility and...

-The Economic Times The ills of Indian agriculture are many and well documented: highly fragmented land holdings, inadequate mechanisation, low quality and quantity of inputs, high dependence on monsoons, and so on. But the sector may do better in the future. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's success in raising the pace of agricultural growth in Gujarat and his government's intention of introducing agri reforms-the recent raising of import duty on sugar, meant to...

-Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set in motion the first major revamp in decades of the archaic labour laws, part of a plan to revive the flagging economy, boost manufacturing and create millions of jobs. Successive governments have agreed labour reform is critical to absorb 200 million Indians reaching working age over the next two decades, but fears of an ugly union-led backlash and partisan politics have prevented changes to free...