Pawar’s Report Card The Negatives     Per capita availability of cereals and pulses has fallen in last eight years     No improvement in irrigation, 60% of agriculture still dependent on monsoons     Farmers growing cereals, sugarcane, oilseeds and pulses assured higher MSP, but majority don't benefit     Production up, but not productivity. Farmer suicides are on the rise.     Poor market advisory on exports being misused to buy cheaply from farmers and make profits overseas     Pawar...

The Government of India has formally launched the news Guidelines of the MGNAREGA based on the Mihir Shah Committee report. The news guidelines include many new works under conservation activities and it strengthens the hands of the village panchayats and gram sabhas. However, the list of works does not include the activities under the system of rice intensification (SRI) which encourages scientific method of paddy cultivation with better yield in...

-The Indian Express The government on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha about the expansion of the scope of activities permitted under the rural job guarantee scheme by including 30 new activities. These will supplement agricultural and animal husbandry operations along with flood management and sanitation-related works in rural India. According to the copy of the government notification put before the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, the government has amended Schedule-I and Schedule-II of...

Organising a food festival can hardly be described as an act promoting hatred between students or communities. The controversy over the Beef Festival recently organised on the campus of Osmania University in Hyderabad and the threat of professors being investigated by the police for “instigating” the organisers needs to be understood in the context of the larger politics of food and policing of food practices. Across the country, different communities in different...

The water used to cool the Rawatbhata reactor was pumped back into Chambal river. Before and during my pregnancy, I drank the tap water supplied to us from the same river. I didn't go even so far as to boil this water. Nothing went wrong. Kudankulam has been in the news and how! Little did I imagine in 2002 that this remote area of southern Tamil Nadu where there are more...