What lies behind Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s note to the prime minister asking for a suspension of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA, for short) for three months a year? The obvious reason is that the big farmers’ lobby he represents is unhappy that NREGA has raised wages in rural areas and labour cannot be enticed to work for less. Under NREGA, labourers get paid at least Rs...
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Empowered panel to send two members to inspect dam by J Venkatesan
Decision comes after Kerala raises fears about safety After Kerala raised apprehensions about the safety of the Mullaperiyar dam after recent mild tremors in the area, the Empowered Committee decided on Monday to send two technical members to inspect the dam before finalising its report. The former Chief Justice of India, A.S. Anand, is heading the committee. Its members are Justice K.T. Thomas, a retired Supreme Court judge representing Kerala; Justice A.R....
More »Water, not safety, Kerala’s main issue: TN farmers by Gopu Mohan
-The Indian Express Unmoved by the blitzkrieg from Kerala about the “imminent collapse” of the Mullaperiyar dam, those in support of Tamil Nadu’s stand on the dispute argue that their neighbour’s catchy slogan ‘safety for Kerala, water for Tamil Nadu’ does not capture the devil that is in the detail. While Kerala has pegged its campaign for a new dam completely on the safety aspect of the older one, which it claims...
More »Labourer ‘buys' Chhattisgarh land worth Rs 3cr by Supriya Sharma
In the winter of 2009, Vilam Singh, a young tribal farmer from Chhattisgarh's Kawardha district, applied for 100 rupee-a-day work under MNREGA, the rural job scheme. One year later, the same below-the-poverty line farmer bought land worth 3.36 crore rupees in another district, Janjgir Champa. What explains the sudden turn of fortune? "He did not turn rich overnight. He was simply roped in to act as a front by a power company that...
More »PM Manmohan Singh got past a split cabinet to push retail FDI by Shekhar Iyer
It wasn't just a vocal opposition that was against the Cabinet's decision to allow 51% foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail business. The cabinet itself was split down the middle, which had an animated — even heated — debate on the pros and cons of opening up a sector that was so far considered politically too sensitive for farmers, small traders and consumers. Finally it took the prime minister to...
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