-Livemint.com Madhya Pradesh is leading the way in setting up custom hiring centres, which rent out machinery to small farmers and employ rural youth to manage them Bhopal/ New Delhi: The frown on the face of Shakti Singh Tomar belies his recent successes. A 44-year-old farmer from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, Tomar proudly says he purchased a Mahindra Bolero SUV in 2014 by paying Rs. 8.1 lakh in cash. “Unlike others, I...

-The Hindu Held to account by the Supreme Court, the Central government is using opaque methods to change the key provisions of the employment guarantee scheme and make it targeted instead of universal. There is a pithy saying in Hindi that the elephant has two sets of teeth, one for show and the other to eat. This seems an apt description of the approach of the Narendra Modi government towards the implementation...

-The Hindu The pursuit of full employment of labour cannot primarily rely on domestic private investment, much less FDI. Only public investment will steady us in the long run. We are increasingly told that the inflow of capital — particularly the foreign direct investment (FDI) variety — increases employment levels and contributes to economic growth. In a rare interview given to The Wall Street Journal in May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reinforced...

-The Hindu India is the only large country that is experiencing an economic divergence among its States. “Real freedom lies in economic freedom,” said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, in her Independence Day speech this year. The subtle reference here was to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, which her party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, did not endorse, the only political party to do so in Parliament, on...

-The Telegraph Cuttack: The threat of extinction looms large over the state's natural fish stocks in rivers and lakes because of unregulated inland fishing during the breeding season. The impact of unrestricted fishing is already being felt in the state's rivers, especially in the Mahanadi. There has reportedly been a drastic downslide in fish catch. The annual freshwater fish production in the state is around three lakh tonnes. While 87 per cent fishes...