-DNA   Jaipur: Rajasthan government has doubled the number of employment days for tribals in Udaipur and Baran districts under the MNERGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act) in a year. This would take the number of working days from the present mandatory 100 days to 200 days. This increase would provide guaranteed six months of employment to the tribals. The tribes that would benefit from this would be Saharia and Kharua...

-The Hindu In contrast to its pronouncements, the government’s own data suggest the economy is in a deep hole Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address, spoke triumphantly about how demonetisation drove ?3 lakh crore of unaccounted money into the banking system. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is still counting old notes, and unaccounted money cases are ongoing. Thus, this number is at best a guesstimate, and cannot be...

-TheWire.in Adivasi leaders and activists say that behind the recent communal legislations is the state government’s hidden agenda to transfer community land to corporates and deflect attention from its failure to address crucial developmental issues plaguing the state. New Delhi: The abuse and heckling that Jean Drèze had to face at the hands of BJP leaders on the eve of 70 years of India’s independence is startling, not just because of the...

-The Indian Express The failure of populist rural credit schemes stems primarily from poor understanding of farm indebtedness in the first place. From the 1970s, a lot of private investment in tube-well irrigation, farm mechanisation and allied agricultural activities took place with bank credit support. After the establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 1982, institutional credit flows not only accelerated, but also exhibited diversification to fund livestock...

-Livemint.com Unlike the dhoti-clad, topi-wearing quintessential ‘kisan’, the new Indian farmer is vocal and tech-savvy New Delhi: In the winter of 1988 when the feisty farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, laid siege to Delhi with thousands of cultivators and their cattle literally creating a mess of the boat club lawns, agriculture’s share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 30%. About three decades later, the farm sector’s share in...