-Newsclick.in An explosive farming crisis and sustained protests over the past two years have converged in the historic march by 50,000 farmers to Mumbai. Over the past six days, India has slowly woken up to farmers’ distress – and their resistance. On 6 March, about 20,000 farmers from various parts of the state mobilized by the CPI (M) affiliated All India Kisan Sabha gathered at Nashik in north-western Maharashtra to begin a...

-Livemint.com Youth in rural India are often forced to work in their family farms, but they prefer joining the army or becoming engineers, teachers or nurses, the survey shows New Delhi: Youth in rural India are often forced to work in their family farms, but they prefer joining the army or becoming engineers, teachers or nurses, found a survey released last week. A large number of rural youth in the 14-18 year age...

-Livemint.com Distress in rural economy is not limited only to the agrarian sector but has also spilled over to the larger economy with unemployment becoming a major challenge 2017 has been a bad year for the economy. The fact that the economy is in crisis, particularly the rural economy, is no longer a matter of statistics. The recent elections in Gujarat have laid bare the fissures in the rural economy that have...

-TheWire.in Maharashtra cannot retain its position as a progressive state if health budget cuts become a characteristic part of its budgets. Massive budget cuts and budget under-spending in the social sector have been reported from Maharashtra over the last two years. The state spent as less as 0.49% of its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) on the public health sector in 2017-18. Incidentally, the state also witnessed high malnourishment, rising leprosy cases,...

-The Indian Express The transition from a regime of ‘downward stickiness’ to ‘upward stickiness’ has relevance beyond economic jargon. Here’s how Agricultural commodity prices in India have traditionally exhibited what economists call “downward stickiness” — resistance to any declines, while rising at the slightest demand-supply imbalance. That conventional wisdom may have been turned on its head by demonetisation. The tendency now is for prices to be increasingly “sticky upward”. The accompanying table (right)...