-The Hindu Investment in a scheme that guarantees rural employment with minimum wages should be seen as complementary and not alternative to development activities A recent paper by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has argued that the "push" factors of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are not as important as the economic growth "pull" factors, for increasing agricultural wages. The paper has received wide media...
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NABARD shifts blame for corporate warehousing scheme to FinMin, RBI-Shalini Singh
-The Hindu In the eye of the storm for funding corporate warehousing projects on terms far softer than those offered to poor farmers, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is now blaming the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the transgressions. Following a story in The Hindu, (‘As farmers suffer, NABARD offers soft loans to corporates, ' December 10, 2012), NABARD came under...
More »Reality check on land -Yoginder K Alagh
-The Indian Express Law on land acquisition will reduce distortions in the use of a scarce resource Land records are in a mess in most states. While satellite imagery can yield an authentic image of the plots, it cannot determine ownership. The land acquisition issue is nearing the end of its first phase. With the government accepting key BJP demands, a consensus has been evolved and the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill...
More »Over 2,000 fewer farmers every day-P Sainath
-The Hindu The mistaken notion that the 53 per cent of India's population ‘dependent on agriculture' are all ‘farmers' leads many to dismiss the massive farmers' suicides as trivial There are nearly 15 million farmers (‘Main' cultivators) fewer than there were in 1991. Over 7.7 million less since 2001, as the latest Census data show. On average, that's about 2,035 farmers losing ‘Main Cultivator' status every single day for the last 20...
More »In story of Saradha's crores, Bengal's forgotten hundreds -Madhuparna Das
-The Indian Express West Bengal is not new to chit fund scams. What is unique to the Saradha Group scandal is how it targeted the poorest and the most marginalised, leaving them on the verge of devastation. From 17-year-old agents who raised money from depositors to 50-year-old widows who invested money, the Saradha Group didn't discriminate in roping them in. Since the house of cards started collapsing, two agents and two...
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