On 17 th September 2020, Lok Sabha passed the three farm laws - (i) Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; (ii) Farmer's (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020; (iii) Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 - followed by the Rajya Sabha on 20 th September 2020. The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, gave his assent on 27 th September 2020. First bill relaxes restrictions governing purchases and sale of farm produce, the second relaxes restrictions on stocking under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), 1955, and third introduces a dedicated legislation to enable contract farming based on written agreements. Status of Agriculture in India Agriculture in India is without a doubt, one of the most pertinent sectors of the Indian economy. Contributi...

India is mainly an agricultural society/ country. Agriculture is the most important occupation for most of the Indian families. Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy and will continue to remain so for a long time (as it seems now). Indian agriculture is characterised by agro-ecological diversities in soil, rainfall, temperature and cropping season. Agriculture and its allied sector employ more than half of the workforce in the country. However, it contributes only about 17% of the GDP. Distribution of Farmland in India 86% of total farmers are small and marginal, and they only own 47% of the total agricultural land, medium farmers are 13%, and they own 44% of the land, and the rest belongs to large farmers (see figure 1). The average size of farm holdings gradually reduced from 2.58 ha to 1.57 ha (2017-18 data) due to fragmentation of landholding generations after generation. These small and marginal farmers have limited resources com...

What is Unemployment? Unemployment refers to a situation in which the workers who are capable of working and willing to work do not get employed or fail to secure work or any other activity which gives them income or means of livelihood. People who are unfit for work due to physical reason or do not want to work are excluded from the category of unemployment. Basic Definitions 1. Workforce: A worker is one who participate in any economic activity. 2. Labour Force: It refers to the segment of population which supplies or offers to supply labour for production and therefore includes both employed and unemployed persons. 3. Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): It is defined as the percentage of persons in labour force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population. 4. Work Participation Rate: It is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population. 5. Unemployment Rate: Is is defined as a number of unemployed people divided by th...

A Closer Look at India’s languages (Infographic), Credit: daytranslations.com The compulsory imposition of Hindi in schools under the draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 displeased non-Hindi speaking states like Tamil Nadu. After much backlash the clause was revised to make it non-mandatory. This was not the first time in the independence history of India that the issue of languages has arisen. It arose in the past, it will arise in the future. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND India has a rich heritage in terms of languages and every language spoken, even by the most remote areas, is respected by the Constitution. “History demonstrates that, from times immemorial, India has been a multilingual country, each language having a certain region in which it was supreme, but none of these regions truly constituted unilingual kingdom or principality.” In ancient India, Sanskrit was most prevailing language by the 'elites' and Pali was the medium of communication for 'lo...

Agriculture has been a primary activity since the early period of the human history, and it has remained the oldest economic activity. Around two-third of the population of India is involved in agriculture and its allied activities, making it the largest livelihood provider. Most of the production by the farmers is consumed domestically and very little is exported. Agriculture is the prime source of providing work to the rural India but its contribution in the GDP is minimal. Year-by-year the contribution of agriculture and its allied allied activities in the GDP decreased from 55% in 1950-51 to 18.2% in 2013-14, which is very sad. In fact India is the largest producer, consumer and exporter of spices and spice products. India's fruit production has grown faster than vegetables! making it the second largest fruit producer in the world. India's horticulture fruits, vegetables and spices reached to a record high of 283.5 million tonnes (MT) in 2014-15. It ranks third in fa...