-Economic and Political Weekly     In exploring the link between food price inflation and rising rural real wages, this paper examines the dynamic relations between rural wages in different sectors and the relationship these wages share with increasing food prices. It looks into the possibility of a Lewsian transformation causing an increase in real rural wages, but the result of the analysis suggests that the rise in wages is because of an...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is likely to make it mandatory that 60% of work undertaken in a district under the job guarantee scheme- MGNREGA- should be linked to agriculture. The rural development ministry will incorporate the mandatory clause in Schedule-1 of the MGNREGA so that every state has to follow the norms designed to give a fillip to agriculture through labour-intensive work under the job scheme. RD secretary...

-The Hindu   A welter of problems may be in store for the country These are testing times for the Narendra Modi government in the farm and food sector: the south-west (June-September) monsoon is delayed, deficient and weak; kharif sowing, much of which is rain-fed, is lagging by over 17 per cent over last year; rising food prices are pushing up inflation and pulling down growth. Right now the prices of only perishable...

-The Hindu   Salt workers toil under inhuman conditions to create the ingredient that converts a tasteless lump of calories into consumable tasty food Salt has played an iconic role in our freedom struggle, symbolised by the great salt satyagraha of 1933, led by Mahatma Gandhi at Dandi. Every child in India knows about this but how many know that a similar satyagraha was led in the Madras Presidency (now Tamil Nadu) by...

-Outlook   Electricity distribution to the end consumer in India needs reform in order to achieve the target of electricity to all by 2019, says the World Bank. "Power distribution in India needs sweeping reforms if it is to bring back the country to a high growth trajectory and meet its goal of expanding access to electricity to all by 2019', the Bank report released today said. Today, India's annual per capita Power Sector...