A revolution in small farm management is essential to revitalise the country’s agriculture sector, according to noted agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan. Corporate farming would be detrimental to India. Farming was the largest private sector enterprise in the country, and any bid to take away land from the farmer would be counter-productive. But a symbiotic relationship between farmers and industry, resulting in a win-win situation for both, would be good, he...

Several recent reports put India at the bottom when it comes to gender equality. It is time for a clearly-spelt new policy on women and development. SHAILAJA CHANDRA  “By and large the attitude of a man towards his wife is possibly worse than his attitude towards his buffalo.”--Colin Gonzalves, Human Rights Lawyer The World Economic Forum, in a report titled the Global Gender Gap 2009, has quantified the magnitude of gender-based...

The District Rural Development Agency has hiked the wage from January 1 ERODE: Hike in National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) wage has got Erode farmers worried about labour shortage. Following State Government’s instruction, the District Rural Development Agency, which oversees NREGS implementation, hiked the wage January 1 onwards by Rs. 20 to Rs. 100 a day. Under NREGS below poverty line families get work for 100 days a year, which is...

The Union government’s decision to revive a long-forgotten concept of primary producers’ companies (PPCs) ought to be welcomed. Such companies can help small farmers and individual craftsmen come together to derive economies of scale. The idea of farmers’ companies which extend the benefit of being a registered firm while allowing farmers to derive all the benefits of agricultural land ownership, was mooted nearly a decade ago. After much debate, the...

The Supreme Court on Monday held that the Right to Information Act cannot be used by a litigant to question the basis or correctness of a judicial order. A Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice B.S. Chauhan dismissed a special leave petition filed by a litigant Khanapuram Gandaiah against a judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court rejecting the plea for giving reasons for the judicial order under...