-The Hindu Investment in a scheme that guarantees rural employment with minimum wages should be seen as complementary and not alternative to development activities A recent paper by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has argued that the "push" factors of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are not as important as the economic growth "pull" factors, for increasing agricultural wages. The paper has received wide media...
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Food bill: Why Budget 2013 is a make-or-break budget for UPA-Amulya Ganguli
-First Post With 10 state assembly elections this year and the general election in the next, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) faces possibly its sternest challenge since it returned to power in 2009. It goes without saying that the forthcoming electoral tests have been compounded by the perceptibly declining political standing of the ruling alliance caused by multiple scams and Economic Stagnation. In addition, defeats in a series of elections ranging...
More »From Bengal Famine to Right to Food-MS Swaminathan
-The Hindu While there is reason to be proud of the progress in the production of wheat, rice, cereals and millets, the use of farmland for non-farm purposes is a cause for concern The year 2013 marks the 70th anniversary of the Bengal Famine which resulted in the death of an estimated 1.5 to 3 million children, women and men during 1942-43. A constellation of factors led to this mega-tragedy, such as...
More »RIL stalls CAG audit yet again -Sujay Mehdudia
-The Hindu It has been insisting that the audit of KG-DWN-98/3 block not be made public Emboldened by the stagnation in the arbitration proceedings, the Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has once again stalled the audit of KG-DWN-98/3 block by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) by refusing to furnish records, financial accounts and SAP access for the KG D6 block for the 2008-12 period on various grounds. It is learnt that RIL...
More »The great number fetish-Sankaran Krishna
-The Hindu One of the most prominent features of India’s middle-class-driven public culture has been an obsession about our GDP growth rate, and a facile equation of that number with a sense of national achievement or impending arrival into affluence. In media headlines, political speeches, and everyday conversations, the GDP growth rate number — whether it is five per cent or eight per cent or whatever — has become a staple...
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