Against the backdrop of the Finance Minister Shri Piyush Goyal announcing the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PMKSN) programme during his budget speech on 1st February, 2019, it becomes essential to differentiate between 12.56 crore operational holding households (enumerated, as per the Agriculture Census) and 13.33 crore ownership holding households (estimated, as per the 70th round National Sample Survey report no. 571) pertaining to size upto 2 hectares. In his budget...

-Newsclick.in The Interim Budget granted a paltry Rs 500 per month to farmers as relief, fund cuts for dalits, adivasis and minorities, and was silent on agricultural and industrial workers. It was the theatre of absurd in the Lok Sabha on Friday as replacement Finance Minister Piyush Goyal presented the Interim Budget through an election speech, tom-tomming the so-called achievements of the Narendra Modi government over the past five years, offering an...

-Livemint.com Ecologist Madhav Gadgil, whose report on Western Ghats was rejected by the Kerala government, on what caused the Kerala floods and how the rebuilding process should be carried out Ernakulam (Kerala): Submitted seven years ago on 31 August 2011, ecologist Madhav Gadgil’s report on the biodiverse Western Ghats—a portion of which falls in Kerala—had warned that the combination of massive ecological destruction and extreme weather events trigger disaster. His words proved...

-The Hindu The outgoing CEA also batted for the lateral entry of talent into the government The compensation payable to the States for revenue loss arising due to GST is just ?5,000 crore, far lower than was estimated, according to Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian. In a candid interview to The Hindu, the outgoing CEA also batted for the lateral entry of talent into the government, saying that it was a “no brainer”...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Linkage of MGNREGS accounts with an Aadhaar-linked payment (ALP) system significantly boosted efficiency of wage transfers, doubling funds transferred and increasing work allotted in times of distress as compared to previous years when demand actually dropped during economic stress due to leakage and delays in payments. An Indian School of Business study that examined annual data for blocks which had drought conditions in financial years 2012-2017...