More than 2,000 farmers and farm widows on Tuesday participated in a day-long hunger-strike in Vidarbha to demand the sacking of union Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, an activist said. In the agitation called by the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), farmers in Pandharkawada village of Yavatmal district, some 150 km south of here, also said that they would go on an indefinite hunger-strike to press for their demand. "The Supreme Court...

As food prices rose for the seventh month in a row in January, contributing to recent popular unrest in the Middle East and a spike in commodities purchases by developing countries last week, some analysts are quick to make comparisons to the dry years of 2007-2008. But others warn against panic and oversimplified predictions of an impending food crisis, which contribute to price volatility. "It is important to underline – and we've...

Roza Mandi, the biggest grain/paddy market in Shahjahanpur distrtict of Uttar Pradesh, is always bustling with traders, farmers and mill owners. However, there is one spot in the market where there is not much activity. And that is the government procurement centre, where farmers are supposed to sell their crops. Amrish Tiwari, a farmer from Shahjahanpur, harvested 1,000 quintal of paddy crop this season. Considering he should have sold around 850...

The late Rajiv Gandhi famously, or infamously, once claimed that only 15 per cent of the funds allocated to welfare programmes ever reached the intended beneficiaries. The rest leaked enroute, entering the pockets of an assortment of intermediaries. This is a thought that the Union finance minister must always remember, especially when he sits down to allocate funds for an assortment of subsidies and some of the high-profile spending programme...

The Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch (AARM) has urged Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to ensure that the allocation for the Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) in this year’s budget is increased to 8.4 per cent, in keeping with the strength of the tribals in the country. They stressed that the shortfall on this account was over Rs 27,000 crores in the last two years. Members of the AARM, which works among tribal...