The pattern of Land Distribution has rendered rural landscape of UP disfavourable for farming. The precursor for this is the fragmentation of cultivable land into a large number of `small landholdings'. The process set under the demographic pressure, has caused marginalisation of a vast majority of farmers and posed a severe challenge to the prospects of rural economy and the growth of agriculture in future. Going by the official figure, UP...

The joint committee on the Forest Rights Act (FRA) has termed the implementation of the Act in the state as extremely poor and recommended that it should be enforced in the state and not confined only to the tribal areas. It is of the firm view that there should be no diversion of forest land till the FRA is enforced fully. Disagreeing with the general perception on the part of the government...

A meticulous study of the agrarian relations in three villages. ONE of our senior sociologists once drew my attention to the distinction between economics and other social sciences. Other social sciences – sociology and anthropology, for instance – he said, pay a great deal of attention to gathering primary data and interpreting them, whereas economics relies on secondary data for its analysis. This is, to a large extent, a fair...

The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser.  What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...

Will UPA-II's ambitious food security programme work? The issue gains immediacy, with the National Advisory Council unveiling a new draft plan envisaging legal entitlement to subsidised foodgrain for at least 75 per cent of the population. That works out to almost 800 million people. If implemented, this means the government's food subsidy bill will be far bigger. Also, our groaning public distribution system will come under greater strain. Now, central...