-The Indian Express Government’s scheme to pay Rs 6,000 every year to poor rural households will increase their expenditure, reduce poverty by 10 to 20 per cent in many states. In the last week of February, the government launched a scheme to pay Rs 6,000 every year to poor rural households who own less than 2 hectares of land. The scheme will have an annual outlay of Rs 75,000 crore. The...

-Financial Express With elections approaching, every party is swearing by farmers and trying to woo them for their votes. The Modi government has already announced a package of Rs 75,000 crore for about 12.6 crore small and marginal farmers. While in absolute terms it looks sizeable, when it is divided by the number of farm families to be covered, it is miniscule—just `6,000 per family per year, which is about 6%...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...

-Newsclick.in The former AMU Vice Chancellor is the brain behind Sir Syed National School, a successful modern school, totally funded by the Muslim community in Muzaffarnagar. PATNA: A retired Lieutenant General of the Indian Army and former Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, Lt Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah, emits a missionary zeal when he talks about the need for “modern and secular” education for Muslim children, instead of “ghettoised” schools. “We have...

-TheWire.in Several people who worked in the industry say demonetisation and the GST crippled their business. Jaipur: However much the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) may wish to overlook the impact of demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax on the unorganised gems and jewellery sector in Rajasthan, the workers and households who bore the brunt of the twin economic policies are resolute in their decision to vote the BJP out of power. The...