-The Hindu Business Line Noted Gandhian economist Dr Sudarshan Iyengar surveys the distressed agricultural landscape, pinpoints its weaknesses, and prescribes solutions with their roots in Gandhian agronomics. Edited excerpts from an interview to BusinessLine: * Given the agrarian crisis in India today, how relevant are Gandhi's economic principles based on the village economy, and equitable distribution of resources? They are relevant in the context of Gandhi's view of gram swaraj (village self-rule), which...

-The Hindu Putting more money in the hands of rural households will stir up the economy The government’s statistical machinery has begun work on revising the indices that capture the trends in consumer prices experienced in rural India. This opens up the prospect for an upward revision in the wages paid out to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The current national average wage is just about...

-Hindustan Times India’s obsession with keeping food prices low, even when there’s no inflationary pressure, has long hurt farm incomes Farming is gloriously uncertain, thanks not just to uncertain weather, but also unpredictable policies. Let’s zoom into the finances of Bhupinder Pal Singh, a horticulturist from Babbain, a village in Haryana, a state that counts itself among the first places where India’s Green Revolution of 1960s began. In good years, Singh would earn...

-The Hindu The government has failed to heed recommendations made by economists and bureaucrats on turnaround measures One of the visitors to pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his re-election this summer was a former Secretary to the Government of India holding a high-profile constitutional office. During the conversation, the Prime Minister asked: “Arthvyavastha ka kya karna chahiye? (What should be done about the economy?)” The former bureaucrat ,...

-PTI New Delhi: Terming high onion prices as a “temporary phase”, Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday asserted that they have enough supplies in buffer stock to check prices of the staple food that trade data showed is ruling in the range of Rs 50-60 per kg in some parts of the country. Among metros, onion was quoting at Rs 34 per kg in Chennai, Rs 43 per kg in Mumbai,...