-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...
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Job growth falls, down to lowest in 3 quarters
-The Indian Express Even as India is poised to emerge as the fastest growing economy in the world, employment generation in eight crucial sectors in the third quarter of 2014-15 dipped to its slowest pace in three quarters. Just 1.17 lakh new jobs were created in eight key sectors of the economy between October and December 2014, according to a survey by the labour bureau. In contrast, 1.58 lakh jobs were created...
More »Fields of Despair -Sutapa Deb
-NDTV There is the reality of a farmer's suicide and then there are versions of this reality. Whether you choose to accept the farmer's context of poverty, debt and extreme risk, or deny it, often depends on the class and profession you belong to. Fields pockmarked with brown mounds create a surreal setting. At least nine suicides by farmers have been linked to the crisis in West Bengal's potato belt. Farmers have...
More »Sex ratio kills honeymoon dream in Gujarat -Himanshu Kaushik & Bharat Yagnik
-The Times of India AHMEDABAD/GANDHINAGAR: PM Narendra Modi may be the most famous 'bachelor' from Gujarat, but the state is home to 6.29 lakh unheralded men above 30 and 40 years who are unmarried - according to Census 2011. And the majority of them are not single by choice. The number is a manifestation of the skewed sex ratio in Gujarat, which has 919 women per 1,000 men and only 886 girls...
More »So Richie Rich? Have Another One On Us -P Sainath
-Outlook Corporate karza maafi reaches new heights, social spending new lows This year's budget write-off in customs duty on gold, diamonds and jewellery (all aam aadmi items, of course) is Rs 75,592 crore. That's well over twice the "record" amount allocated to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. As Prof Jayati Ghosh points out, the MNREGA has given billions of person-days of work to tens of millions of poor...
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