An ambitious scheme to make higher-education loans more attractive to poor students has failed to meet its target because of inadequate marketing and lack of coordination among various agencies. The scheme, launched in 2010 by the human resource development (HRD) ministry, gives full interest subsidy (a student will not have to pay the interest for the loan he or she avails) to students from families earning less than Rs.4.5 lakh a...

The state's rice bowl is left empty An unviable minimum support price (MSP) for rice has forced farmers in Andhra Pradesh to leave their lands fallow. The movement is spreading to other states. “Farming never pays” is a familiar slogan among agriculturists across the world, and especially so in India. Nevertheless, many continue to cultivate their fields year after year, barely eking out an existence, toiling in the hope that the tide...

“MGNREGS should move from relief work mode to one that blends natural resources and labour” to build productive assets The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), which went into hibernation in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson's absence, has been reactivated. On September 14, it despatched its recommendations on strengthening the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to the government; it wants the scheme to move from its “relief work...

-San Francisco Chronicle   Bihar's chief minister, Nitish Kumar, who runs India's poorest and one of its most corrupt regions, announced a novel bid to tackle endemic poverty: taking the state's bureaucrats out of governing. His administration placed advertisements in newspapers this week, seeking a team of professionals to manage a $1.3 billion annual budget for programs involving job creation, housing, infrastructure and microfinance. In Bihar, a state of 103 million people in...

Studies by the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Academic Forum on food security issues in the three countries suggest that providing food access works best when backed by cash transfers. A paper on food security brought out by the UNDP’s Brasilia-based International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), under the Forum, shows that despite the great strides in food production made by India people in this country are just not eating enough. Citing indices...