-Livemint.com Unless economic misery is alleviated soon, the Narendra Modi-led BJP may have to face angry voters in 2019 general elections New Delhi: A year back, there seemed to be no stopping Narendra Modi. After a landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh elections, the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seemed to have acquired an aura of invincibility. But that aura has diminished somewhat over the past few months as anti-incumbency has grown....

-The Hindu Rather than just increased budgetary outlays, farmers need plans that will rescue them from crop failure Similar to the last two Budgets, this year’s pro-agriculture intentions are palpable through increased outlays to the agricultural sector and initiation of various programmes. They seem impressive, but closer scrutiny shows that the measures may be of little help to stem the tide of agrarian distress. There are some real challenges confronting three...

-Livemint.com To stabilize crop prices and make them remunerative, the Swaminathan Commission proposed significant improvements in the implementation of MSPs Across the country, farmers are furious—and rightfully so. Four years ago, they helped bring the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power, believing Narendra Modi’s claims that they would no longer suffer official neglect. But since then, conditions in agriculture have got worse. Earlier problems have worsened as farm incomes have been squeezed...

-The Hindu The ambitious plan to help farmers earn from solar power generation hinges on small details Electricity is a major concern in rural India, especially for farmers. The Government of India has come up with an original plan to address this problem. Instead of transmitting electricity to the farmers, the government, to start with, wants farmers to use solar energy to power their irrigation pumps. According to the January 2018 report...

-Scroll.in The proposed law is almost identical to the United Progressive Alliance’s 2008 Pesticide Management Bill. Months after more than 40 people in three states were reported to have died in the second half of 2017 after being exposed to spurious pesticides, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has begun consultations on a new Pesticides Management Bill. The deaths in rural Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana highlighted the fact that the Insecticides Act...