The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is under pressure from several quarters. One such source of pressure is the rural rich whose concerns were recently voiced by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, when he raised the bogey of shortage of supply of farm workers because of the employment guarantee scheme. The fact is that the national average for workdays generated under the scheme is less than half of the...

-The Hindu   In a historic first, a special court in Gujarat has convicted and awarded life sentences to as many as 31 mostly high caste, landed Patels for burning alive 33 Muslims — the majority of them women and children — of Sardarpura village in Mehsana district. The village was among numerous Muslim habitations targeted across the State by irate Hindu mobs as part of a pogrom ruthlessly executed in the...

-The Indian Express   Almost a decade after the Gujarat riots of 2002, the first verdict in the nine post-Godhra cases monitored by the Supreme Court has been pronounced, and 31 people have been sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court for the deaths of 33 Muslims at Sardarpura village in Mehsana district. Among the victims were 17 women and 11 children. When the court lifted the stay on the trials...

-The Times of India Given the impunity generally enjoyed by perpetrators of communal violence, the imposition of life sentence on 31 rioters for burning alive 33 Muslim victims in Sardarpura in the 2002 Gujaratriots is a milestone in India's history. If the signal goes out that those responsible for heinous communal massacres do not enjoy immunity from prosecution, that in itself will have a salutary effect in curbing their incidence. It's...

At BANCON (annual bankers' conference) 2011 in Chennai, financial institutions explored avenues for greater participation in agriculture and rural development. There are a few areas in need of additional attention and investment. Green Revolution technologies are scale-neutral but not resource-neutral. Inputs are needed for output; therefore market-purchased inputs become important in providing soil and plant healthcare for higher yields. Social scientists point out that small and marginal farmers will be excluded...