-The Times of India MUMBAI: Education may be priceless, but the promise of a degree has seen parents across India foot large bills. Those from the rural and urban pockets of southern states spend the most, largely sign up at a private university and finance their children's dream of a technical education. On average, higher education accounts for 15.3% of the total household expenditure in rural and 18.4% in urban areas....

-The Hindu Managers of around 3,000 privately-run markets are to meet and protest new rules that ban sale of animals for slaughter at cattle markets Fridays are festive days at Pachokhara. For nearly half-a-century now, farmers, cattle-rearers and tradesmen have made the weekly trip to the cricket stadium-sized grounds of the Upadhyay family— prominent local land-owners — to trade cattle. A dirt road splits the ground into a section for buffaloes and another for...

-The Hindu Men with no prior experience being employed in boats, says study Kochi (Kerala): Of all the 14 persons who were on board Carmel Matha, the fishing boat which was involved in a mid-sea collision on Sunday, no fishermen belonged to Kerala. Surprising as it may seem, the fact, however, has come as no surprise to those in the marine fisheries sector. A cursory glance at the functioning of fishing harbours of...

-Hindustan Times In Mandsaur, demonetisation has disrupted every aspect of the rural economy – land markets, credit networks, procurement, and crop prices. Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh): Traders rued their burnt shops, farmers mourned the death of their sons to police bullets; but as four days of violence drew to a close, both sides could only speak of one thing: demonetisation. “Notebandi destroyed the trust between farmer and trader,” said Sunil Ghatiya, a soybean trader...

-The Telegraph Bhopal: The turbaned, white-haired, kurta-dhoti-wearing "Tauji" figures are there too, but one outstanding feature of the current farmer agitation in Madhya Pradesh are its jeans-clad, smartphone-wielding spearheads. If the veteran "Kakkaji" Shiv Kumar Sharma is the public face of the movement, which lacks a central leadership, much of the spadework is being done by a band of young, bilingual, stats-savvy and largely apolitical agriculture graduates. Their leader Kedar Sirohi, who is...