-Livemint.com In the last three years, wages of agricultural labourers have increased only by 0.5% per year while those of non-agricultural workers have declined by 0.25% per year, the worst so far in 30 years The agrarian economy continues to be plagued by falling output prices, declining incomes and increased variation in agricultural production pointing to a situation of uncertainty and vulnerability among most rural residents. This has created an unprecedented demand...
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A triple blow to job guarantee scheme -Rajendran Narayanan & Madhubala Pothula
-The Hindu A lack of sufficient funds, rampant payment delays and abysmal wage rates are to blame The ?11,000 crore fraud that diamond merchant Nirav Modi is said to have created is a figure that needs to be put in perspective. The total amount of wages pending under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme for the whole country (2016-17) was around ?11,000 crore too. This sum is a...
More »Jean Dreze, development economist and social activist, interviewed by Sagar (CaravanMagazine.in)
-CaravanMagazine.in The economist Jean Drèze’s book, Sense and Solidarity, published in late 2017, deals with the impact of Aadhaar on social-welfare programmes, such as the National Food Security Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, among other things. Drèze was a member of the United Progressive Alliance government’s advisory council, which designed the NFSA and MGNREGS. He co-authored some of the essays in this book with colleagues and...
More »Rural income: looking beyond agriculture -Sanjay Kaul
-Livemint.com China’s example shows the benefits of the rural workforce shifting from the farm to the non-farm sector The government announced its ambitious dream of doubling farmers’ income by 2022-23 in 2015-16. Incomes would have to grow annually by 10.4% to double in seven years. The data on growth rates of farm income given by NITI Aayog in its policy paper on doubling farmers’ income shows that the real income of farmers has...
More »After a brief decline, India's misery index spikes again in 2017 -Pramit Bhattacharya
-Livemint.com Unless economic misery is alleviated soon, the Narendra Modi-led BJP may have to face angry voters in 2019 general elections New Delhi: A year back, there seemed to be no stopping Narendra Modi. After a landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh elections, the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seemed to have acquired an aura of invincibility. But that aura has diminished somewhat over the past few months as anti-incumbency has grown....
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