-TheWire.in Two supplementary MNREGA allocations were made by the government last year. This means, there’s only a 1%, not 25%, actual increase in this year’s Budget. New Delhi: The finance minister claimed that this year’s Budget allocations for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) were a new “record”, at Rs 48,000 crore. But is this really a substantial increase? And, more importantly, is it enough? The 2016-17 Budget had...
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How land use affects climate change -Sujatha Byravan
-The Hindu The interaction between people and land is as old as human evolution. When early hunter-gatherers started to settle down in the Neolithic transition and practise agriculture, they began to change their relationship with land in a major way. Starting with the Holocene, approximately 11,500 years ago, many plants were domesticated for agriculture. These and the associated social and technological changes led to dense human settlements that then paved the...
More »Cotton farmers counting the losses -Rutam Vora, KV Kurmanath and Vishwanath Kulkarni
-The Hindu Business Line Rising pest attacks are mounting pressure on cotton farmers even as prices play truant. Rajeshbhai Patel is not amused. The farmer in Kadi, northern Gujarat grew cotton on four bigha in this year’s kharif season, instead of 11 in 2016. He had reduced the acreage fearing increasing costs owing to pests attacks. But as cotton prices rule at unusually high levels in the ongoing harvest season, he...
More »Modi govt went ahead with demonetisation despite RBI concerns: report -Rajesh Kumar Singh and Suvashree Choudhury
-Livemint.com RBI’s testimony to parliamentary panel shows the bank had warned the government of possible inconvenience to the public for some time New Delhi/ Mumbai: India pushed ahead with its decision to demonetise high-value banknotes even as the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) own board expressed concern whether the cash could be replaced quickly enough, the central bank has said in written testimony to parliament. The revelation comes amid growing criticism about whether...
More »A new class act -Pranab Bardhan
-The Indian Express Higher education in India is failing. Overhauling the system can salvage it Let me start with a blunt statement: India’s higher education is in general a decrepit, dilapidated system, it’s afflicted by a deep malaise. The National Knowledge Commission—Report to the Nation (2006-9) put it only a bit more mildly: “There is a quiet crisis in higher education in India which runs deep”. Three widely acknowledged criteria for judging an...
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