-Hindustan Times Both, the farmers who undertook the march and those who went on strike, represent the wide spectrum of the state’s ongoing agrarian and rural distress. Last year, on June 1, thousands of farmers in Maharashtra went on an unprecedented strike, refusing to sell their produce to markets and cutting off supply of daily necessities – milk, vegetables and fruits – to cities. The two-day strike forced the Devendra Fadnavis-led...

-TheWire.in Though the government is being adamant that there is no data on the impact of demonetisation and GST on the jobs front under various national schemes in India, Labour Bureau data indicates otherwise. New Delhi: While in response to written questions in the Lok Sabha on the impact of demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) on employment generation, the Ministry of Labour and Employment has insisted that it does not possess...

-Livemint.com To stabilize crop prices and make them remunerative, the Swaminathan Commission proposed significant improvements in the implementation of MSPs Across the country, farmers are furious—and rightfully so. Four years ago, they helped bring the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power, believing Narendra Modi’s claims that they would no longer suffer official neglect. But since then, conditions in agriculture have got worse. Earlier problems have worsened as farm incomes have been squeezed...

-The Times of India Jaipur: At Jawaja in Ajmer and Bhim in Rajsamand, workers associated with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) met in large numbers to speak of their problems. It was on February 2, 2006, that NREGA was first implemented in 200 districts of the country. Friday, thus, marked the 12th anniversary of the launch of this programme. People sought not just 100 days as at...

-The Economic Times blog Word has it that World Bank economists use “obviously fabricated” data from time to time. These are not Sitaram Yechury or Medha Patkar’s words, but those of Paul Romer, former chief economist of the World Bank, in a recent email exchange reported by Financial Times. Romer retracted them later, but this “may not end the controversy”, as The Economist mildly put it. This is not the first time...