As minister for rural development, Jairam Ramesh oversees the largest spending in the social sector by the government. This includes the marquee Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) that was pioneered by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in 2006. The minister, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is known for his forthrightness. In a typically candid interview to Mint on...

-The Hindu It will make land acquisition more difficult for private players The Union government proposes to take yet another shot at the crucial land reforms agenda in a bid to help the rural poor affected by a host of land issues and inflation. Having introduced the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill in Parliament, Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, who also holds the Department of Land Resources, aims to address...

-CNN-IBN   Contrary to the dominant narrative that areas where Naxalites are strong are where the state has been absent, for the last 100-150 years, there has been a gradual expansion of the state in Tribal Areas regardless of whether the people want it or not. However, the state has been expanding in the wrong areas. You have an extension of the forest department, the bureaucracy, the patwari and the forest guard....

Madhya Pradesh accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the total area under certified organic farming in the country. Though most of it is due to cotton fields, the state has an immense potential to bring even food crops under organic cultivation.   What may help the state’s cause is that agriculture is already organic by default in many tribal-dominated districts because farmers either don't have the resources to use chemical fertilizers...

-The Telegraph   Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today asked social organisations run by the Catholic Church to help the government carry out development programmes in Maoist-hit Tribal Areas but cautioned them against “religious mobilisation”. At an event held by Caritas India, Ramesh asked the Catholic organisation to help break down the “trust deficit” between the government and the tribal communities. But he added that Caritas should observe a certain “Lakshman rekha”. “I expect...