-Frontline The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...
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What the states got right -Dhanmanjiri Sathe
-The Indian Express The pace of land acquisition, which has been taking place in India since Independence, increased after liberalisation. In more cases than not, it has been successful, that is, both buyer and seller have been satisfied with the outcome. But today, land acquisition is being portrayed as next to impossible. This perception is not based on reality and needs to be changed. The farmer is wrongly being portrayed as...
More »India’s unrealised maternity entitlement -Vanita Leah Falcao & Jasmeet Khanuja
-The Hindu The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana was introduced to provide partial wage compensation during pregnancy, but various issues plague its implementation The latest official figures indicate that India is well short of meeting the Millennium Development Goals that pledged to reduce the country's maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by three quarters and the infant mortality rate (IMR) by two-thirds. The Sample Registration System (SRS), 2013, records MMR at 167 per 1,00,000...
More »Caste determines spending on food, choice of work: NSSO -Rukmini S
-The Hindu How much and what people eat and what work they do differs significantly by caste, new data from the national sample survey Office show. However, these differences are likely to be correlated, rather than caused by caste. The NSSO released two new reports this week: one on household consumption expenditure by a social group and the other on employment and unemployment by a social group. The data show that...
More »Cash vs kind -Rohini Somanathan and Anders Kjelsrud
-The Indian Express Given indicators that the government is considering moving to cash transfers and replacing the public distribution system (PDS), and the release of the Shanta Kumar Committee report, the debate on how best to provide food security has been rekindled. The report has a careful analysis of the sources of inefficiency at various stages of the procurement, storage and distribution system. Especially heartening is the admission that the Food...
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