-The Indian Express They are on the roads and in the fields. Farmers are worried, as are MLAs. 13 years after its anti-cow slaughter Act, Madhya Pradesh struggles with stray cows Nestled along a rocky hillock in Tikamgarh, this small village of about a thousand residents follows a fixed ritual at twilight. Before retiring for the day, the men of Dumbar herd cows wandering in the village’s lanes into a makeshift enclosure,...

-Livemint.com Unlike the dhoti-clad, topi-wearing quintessential ‘kisan’, the new Indian farmer is vocal and tech-savvy New Delhi: In the winter of 1988 when the feisty farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, laid siege to Delhi with thousands of cultivators and their cattle literally creating a mess of the boat club lawns, agriculture’s share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 30%. About three decades later, the farm sector’s share in...

-GovernanceNow.com The cost of maintaining our 5.3 million stray cattle comes to about Rs 30,115 core per year A lot of debate that we witness in the media on the cattle question these days suffer from the disease of speculative utopian imagination of a ‘cow-nation’ and relentless abuses for those beef-eating ‘others’.   Political debates over the question of our bovine stock has mostly been heavily polarising and mindlessly simplistic, notwithstanding exceptions like veteran...

-Livemint.com Increasing mechanization and stagnant wages might be behind youth unrest in poll-bound Gujarat As Gujarat prepares for assembly polls scheduled at the end of this year, the big question is whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be able to retain the support which Narendra Modi’s leadership guaranteed. The Hardik Patel-led Patidar agitation and Jignesh Mevani-led Dalit protests point towards rising discontent among a section of the youth in the...

-The Hindu Online media companies don’t take responsibility for their content, he says Sam Pitroda, regarded as the father of India’s telecom revolution, says that he is deeply concerned with the way social media is being misused globally to propagate lies, hatred and false ideas. In an interview, Mr. Pitroda says that in India also, social media has not been used effectively and technology is not meant to be misapplied. He says...