-The Hindu Business Line The PM Krishi Sinchai Yojana smacks of poor watershed planning. As with earlier schemes, accountability is absent The launch of any new scheme by the government always creates a sense of déjà vu. First, priorities, plans and programmes constantly change depending upon who’s in power at the Centre; second, schemes, new or old, deliver identical outcomes. The Ganga Action Plan (GAP), Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP), MNREGA were all...

Two recent reports show that this social sector scheme has had a causal impact in improving lives, especially for women and children Fourteen million people escaped falling into poverty under the world’s largest anti-poverty programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In 10 years of its existence, the scheme reduced poverty by 32 per cent. Recent data also shows that more women are drawing cash incomes, more children...

-The Times of India KOLHAPUR: As many as one lakh families of farmers in the state opted out of agriculture, their sole profession, in the last five years, according to the latest agriculture Census figures. Experts expressed fears that the trend might continue with the availability of other income sources and tolerance level of the farmers reaching its peak. The final figures of agricultural land holdings for 2015-16 will be released later. According...

-The Hindu Across the country, unless adequate jobs are created for the large labour force, the frustration of the youth is not likely to be contained. In Gujarat, the Patels or Patidars, who constitute about 15 per cent of the State’s population, are an economically and politically dominant upper caste. As successful farmers, as small and big industrialists, as traders as well as non-resident Gujaratis, spread practically all over the world, they...

-Al Jazeera Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to narrow the gap between Indian elites and the rest of the population India has experienced a significant economic growth spurt in recent decades. After seeing annual growth of 3 percent in the years after independence in 1947, the rate began to double, reaching a rate of around 6 percent per year after 1980. However, the distribution of growth proceeds has been very uneven...