-IndiaSpend.com Bengaluru: In the aftermath of the COVID-19 epidemic and two months of stringent lockdown, India now faces the crises of unemployment and business closure, particularly in the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSMEs) sector. A new report by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) has proposed that MSME recovery can be speeded along by: * Identifying micro, small and...

-Hindustan Times Move beyond State-market, rural-urban, agri-non agri and welfare-growth binaries. They are linked This has been a difficult three months for India. The policy response to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and the lockdown has forced it to confront long-ignored realities about the Indian economy — its fragility, regional and spatial concentration and deep structural inequity. It also made visible sources of precarious resilience. Agriculture and associated supply chains, for instance, held...

-Livemint.com 30% of India’s urban population may deplete their lifetime savings by the end of June and would find it difficult to meet essential consumption In the best of times, India’s poor lead a fragile existence but in the worst of times their situation becomes extremely precarious. The lockdown of the country over the past few months has discomfited everyone but it has hit the urban poor the hardest. Measuring vulnerability accurately is...

-The Hindu New Delhi: A central expenditure audit team has detected a fraud of ₹57 lakh by over 100 officials of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), in claiming leave travel concession and reimbursement of phone bills during the 2017-18 period. Executive Council While the varsity did not respond to queries pertaining to the same, a senior official, who did not wish to be named, said that the matter was put forth before the Executive...

-The Indian Express Calling it a “historic day for agriculture”, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the reforms will largely free the sector from a system of inspectors and permits. New Delhi: Clearing the way for significant reforms in the agriculture sector, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared three ordinances aimed at lifting restrictions on key commodities such as cereals, pulses, onion and potato, and giving farmers the freedom to sell...