-The Hindu Business Line Eminent agriculture scientist MS Swaminathan, Chairman of the much discussed Farmers’ Commission whose report mooted an MSP at 50 per cent above cost, feels that income support can be given in the form of free inputs or higher procurement as well. While welcoming ‘PM-Kisan’, he says cash transfer should not become a form of patronage and that the focus should shift from loan write-offs to long-term policies....

-Down to Earth Illegal mining has ravaged the mountain range in the past few decades. Down To Earth investigates the loss and traces the legal developments in Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi Abdal khan is a prisoner of geography. A resident of Nimli village in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, Khan, who claims to be over 100 years old, is mostly bedridden in his home nestled in the foothills of the Aravallis. He stays quiet...

-TheWire.in The delta has shrunk by 20% because of diversion of land and climate change. Water-intensive agriculture and industrial practices are adding to the problem. Despite being one of the oldest water-regulator structures in the world that is still functional, the Kallanai dam or the Grand Anicut looks almost empty with not much water to regulate. Located near Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu, it was built across river Kaveri around 2000 years ago...

-NetworkIdeas.org The SDGs were obviously incredibly ambitious – far more so than the Millennium Development Goals that they succeeded – and so it was indeed a remarkable achievement that governments of almost all countries signed up to them. There were no less than 17 very significant and substantive goals, each containing multiple targets, and each target relying often on more than one indicator. And these goals and targets are not simply...

-The Indian Express In 2014-15, the first year under of the NDA government when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had dismissed MGNREGA as “the living monument of UPA’s failure’, the person-days generated was just 166 crore. In an indicator of rural distress, the last year of the NDA government shows a marked increase in the demand for jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Official data show that...