-The Hindu Providing access to credit likely to be a hard step For Prime Minister Narendra Modi's newly launched Jan Dhan Yojana to be successful, India needs to provide over 100 million households access to banks, data show. An even harder step, however, is likely to be access to credit. As of March 2012, the most recent year for which relevant Reserve Bank of India (RBI) statistics are available, India had over 900...

-The Hindu Hyderabad: Small, marginal farmers will continue to dominate Indian agriculture with their number and share in the holdings and cultivated area increasing. They will go in for improved crops and agricultural practices bearing the risks of rising costs, volatile commodity market and difficulties in accessing inputs. "Their role in the food security of the country is certain. But what is uncertain is their security," said Prof. D. Narasimha Reddy, ICSSR...

-The Financial Express Though food inflation could be lower than last year's 11.1%, fruit and vegetable prices remain the pressure points. Concerns over monsoon have diminished a lot in recent weeks because of four positive developments. First, rainfall deficiency has reduced sharply from a century-high of 45% for June to 17% as on August 18. Second, sowing has caught up significantly from 40% below normal in mid-July to just 2.3% below normal...

The Business Standard The Planning Commission has not been central to the policymaking process since the mid-1960s In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the end of the Planning Commission. There will be few mourners at its funeral, mainly old war horses like me. So this is in the nature of an obituary for an institution in which I served for a decade and a half, and where I...

-The Business Standard The Budget missed the chance to articulate its intentions to the farming community; the prime minister's Independence Day speech provides another invaluable opportunity Young Indians starting their careers in an environment devoid of hope and opportunity and surviving on dole will be inclined to populist politics. But the farming community expects much more substance from the government, and the Budget was a good example of how populism trumped...