The data show that rural families simply cannot subsist on farm incomes alone There must be a bit of Gandhi in all of us because often our idea of India ultimately boils down to the kisan as the standard bearer of the lakhs of villages that comprise India. Perhaps that is why I tend to look for the signs of transformation in the lives of Indian farmers. The changes in...
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Six years of the rural jobs scheme
-Live Mint This week marks the completion of six years of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Six years is not a long period of time for any meaningful evaluation of a programme of such nature. However, even within this short period of time, the programme has attracted considerable attention. One part of this is the criticism of how the programme involved considerable leakages, did not create productive...
More »Rural retail sees fall in demand by Ajay Modi
Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar, India’s biggest rural retail chain by sales, which operates 230 stores across eight states and had seen good growth in the past two years, said it had seen a fall in rural demand in the past two to three months. A drop in prices of potatoes, onions and some other vegetables, leading to low realisation for farmers, and an increase in cost of fertiliser, are reasons for these...
More »Rise of livestock by Richard Mahapatra
Agriculture sector undergoes a historic change as livestock surpasses the economy of food grain Policy makers in India are finally acknowledging a structural shift in the agriculture sector they have been noticing for a decade. Economic contribution of livestock is today more than that of food grain crops. Traditionally, of the three components of the sector—crops, livestock and fisheries—crops drove the growth, and food grains are a major part of it....
More »Enhance incomes, education and sanitation to tackle malnutrition
-The Economic Times It is a shame, said the Prime Minister, releasing a new report that says 42% of India's children suffer from malnutrition. Dr Manmohan Singh went on to talk of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the government's preferred scheme for tackling the problem, and of the need to to focus on 100 extremely backward districts. An ICDS-like scheme is entirely appropriate but it would be a big mistake to...
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