-Livemint.com In conversation with Guy Standing, economist at the School Of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Neither the Narendra Modi government nor Rahul Gandhi have gotten minimum income scheme right, he says New Delhi: Income support is the big economic idea of the season. While the ruling BJP government announced a limited money transfer scheme targeted at farmers in the recent interim budget, the Congress has proposed to solve the country’s...

-TheWire.in The scheme is far from being inclusive and will likely exacerbate already unequal social and economic conditions. The focal point of this year’s budget has been the announcement of a new centrally-sponsored scheme, the ‘Pradhan Mantri Kishan Samman Nidhi’ (PM-KISAN). This scheme assures small and marginal farm households a guaranteed annual income support of Rs 6,000. However, this scheme is hardly the first instance of agricultural income support in the country. States...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...

-Financial Express Farm loan waivers—of more than Rs 850 billion in FY18 and FY19, announced by various state governments—are the flavour of the season. This can affect credit offtake and induce further stress for banks and amount to another agrarian crisis. Farm sector NPAs accounted for 16% of banks’ advances under the priority sector lending in October 2018. Post the early waiver-announcements, credit growth in agriculture and allied activities has been...

-The Hindu Business Line NITI Aayog’s document sets out economic goals, but there’s no roadmap The NITI Aayog’s Strategy for New India @75 lays out a checklist of priorities for economic policy-makers over the next three years. It sets out as an immediate priority, the ramping up of the investment rate to 36 per cent of the GDP by 2022, from 29 per cent at present in order to hit a growth...