-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Inequality in South Asia is much more glaring than what government data shows because standard yardsticks of measuring income don't reveal the true picture, says a World Bank report 'Addressing Inequality in South Asia', released on Tuesday. For instance, the Gini coefficient - the standard measure to gauge income inequality - ranges from 0.28 to 0.40 in this region, suggesting a level of inequality much lower...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The Modi government's squeeze on the UPA's flagship MNREGA scheme is translating into dramatic fund cuts for Maharashtra, which has a BJP government. Compared to the last financial year till December, central funds to the rural job scheme have almost halved, data with the state government reveals. The MNREGA-among the largest job-creation programmes in the world-provides a social safety net for the rural poor. Under the scheme,...

-Down to Earth The situation of India's farmers has only become grimmer in the past decade, according to the latest National Sample Survey Office report The lot of the embattled Indian farmer only keeps on getting worse with the passage of time. In the last 10 years, the voluminous debt of Indian agricultural households has increased almost four-fold whereas their undersized monthly income from cultivation has increased three-fold. Even the number of...

-The Hindu India's small farmers have been struggling for centuries now and they need social and governmental action to change their future Of India's 121 million agricultural holdings, 99 million are with small and marginal farmers, with a land share of just 44 per cent and a farmer population share of 87 per cent. With multiple cropping prevalent, such farmers account for 70 per cent of all vegetables and 52 per cent...

-The Pioneer Earlier, due to poor electricity supply in Jharkhand, farmers were unable to store vegetables, thereby incurring losses. Now, with the introduction of ‘desi fridges' that do not require external energy, they can get themselves a better deal, writes Aakriti Shrivastava Sanjay Singh, a smallholder farmer is market savvy. He claims to produce the best quality vegetables in his village, Madanpur, in Jharkhand. He sells his vegetables in a nearby...