-Livemint.com At a pre-budget consultation, farmers and agriculture economists call for steps to reduce input costs New Delhi: Farmers on Tuesday urged finance minister Arun Jaitley to statutorily ensure income security for them and simultaneously take steps to reduce input costs and thereby make farming profitable. The suggestions from the Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA) and agriculture economists was made at the first of the pre-budget consultation. “The median agriculture income is...

-TheWire.in Not only is the government failing to make timely payments, but the Centre’s definition of what constitutes a ‘delay’ is also flawed. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) guarantees 100 days of work in a year for every rural household that demands work. In the current financial year, over 152 crore person days of work has been generated through the programme. The Act mandates that every worker must...

-The Indian Express Government is prioritising savings over MGNREGA and rights of the poor. Rambeti from Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, graphically described the predicament of MGNREGA workers like her in a recent press conference in Delhi. “The government repeatedly states that it will not let us die of starvation. But the truth is, it does not allow us to live either.” That is a terrible evaluation of MGNREGA — a landmark legislation enacted...

-The Financial Express By setting the target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022, the prime minister has clearly signalled a transition in agri-food policy from an excessive emphasis on foodgrain production towards improving welfare of the farming community. Given the continued excessive employment pressure, proliferation of small landholdings and growing agrarian crisis, this move is indeed an important change in the policy landscape. Doubling farmers’ income, however, requires identification of high-income...

-Frontline.in The Assembly elections have put under intense scrutiny Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model of development which is touted as worthy of replication throughout the country. Audit reports of the CAG provide ample evidence of it being inefficient, corrupt and not beneficial to the common people. THE standard indicators of development, as is understood in theory and practice, comprise a range of indices, and not necessarily the level of private investment in...