-The Hindu Strengthening the repayment capacity of farmers by improving and stabilising their income is the only way to keep them out of distress Indian agriculture is characterised by low scale and low productivity. About 85% of the operational landholdings in the country are below 5 acres and 67% farm households survive on an average landholding of one acre. More than half of the area under cultivation does not have access to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government, which had promised to facilitate the creation of 10 million new jobs each year, can finally boast a direct hand in carving out employment in a season of layoffs and self-inflicted economic wounds. But the jobs are in a sector the Prime Minister had promised to trim: his own administration. The foreign ministry plans to hire 400 computer-literate men and women to help it...

-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...

-The Indian Express For villages such as Pidia and Gampur who are caught between government orders and Maoist diktats, “consent” means little. In Pidia, of 485 ration cards, there are 25 that are Aadhaar-seeded. In Gampur, the number is 17 of 283. Gangaloor: For at least two months, Mahendra Hemla has been having the same conversation with the villagers. They come, the entire village of Pipdia almost at once, to his small...

MG Road is seldom considered as a safe place for working women who travel for work to either Gurgaon or Delhi. Almost everyday untoward incidents related to molestation, sexual harassment, kidnapping or rape that occur here are reported in various NCR-based newspapers. Clearly, safety of women office-goers and female workers is one of the major determinants of their (low) labour force participation, even in urban locations like Gurgaon or Delhi....