As the country celebrates 68th anniversary of her independence this year, recent data from the Census 2011 reveals that the population of homeless declined by 8.8% between 2001 and 2011 to reach 17.7 lakhs. This means that 4.5 lakh households (of average household size 3.9) still do not have any shelter to sleep safely. Although the percentage share of homeless in total population is miniscule (i.e. 0.15%), in absolute numbers...
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Saving Agriculture from Drought
-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Agriculture Cumulative rainfall till 05.08.2014 was 405.3 mm which is 19% less than normal or Long Period Average (LPA) of 499.3 mm. As per information provided by IMD, out of 620 districts for which rainfall data is available, 251 (40%) have so far received normal/excess rainfall. State Governments are empowered to initiate appropriate relief measures in the wake drought from funds readily available under State Disaster Response...
More »Schemes and Programmes for the Benefit of Small and Marginal Farmers
-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Agriculture Government restructured the ongoing scheme and following centrally sponsored Mission/Schemes are under implementation from 1.4.2014: (i) National Food Security Mission (NFSM) (ii) National Horticulture Mission (iii) National Mission on Oilseeds & Oil Palm (iv) National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) including Micro Irrigation (v) National Mission on Agricultural Extension & Technology (vi) Integrated Scheme for Farmers Income Security (vii) Integrated Scheme on Agri. Census & Statistics (viii) Integrated Scheme on Agriculture Marketing (ix)...
More »Will these sustainable development goals do the job? -Carla Kweifio-Okai
-The Guardian A UN working group has devised a final draft of targets to succeed the millennium development goals. What do you think of the 17 proposals? The UN working group responsible for crafting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) has handed down its final proposal, adding a goal to address domestic and global inequality. The recommendations include 17 goals and 169 targets to be achieved by 2030. The list includes a reworking of...
More »Union Budget and the 'Digital Divide': Old Wine in New Bottle -Vipul Mudgal
-Economic and Political Weekly The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...
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