At a time when the Anna-tide has swept the people across the country against the anti-corruption campaign, sadly, the agrarian crisis continues to take a heavy toll on farmers in Vidarbha. Unable to put up with crop failure, crippling debts and not getting remunerative price for their produce, six more distressed cotton-growers have committed suicide in Vidarbha over the last 48 hours. Reports reaching Nagpur on Thursday said six cotton growers...

More than two years have passed and there seems to be no progress worth speaking about in making the promised law that will guarantee food for the people. The promise came from the UPA-2 as part of its election manifesto in 2009. It was a time of recovery from a time of economic troubles. The impact of the global economic slowdown came on top of the agrarian crisis and the...

-PTI   Madhya Pradesh Cooperative and Public Health Minister Gaurishankar Bisen today said efforts would be undertaken to bring transparency and accountability in the public distribution system (PDS) in the state.The bio-metric cards or coupons would be used in the entire state with the online computer system to be implemented in the PDS, Bisen told reporters at BJP office here.Informing that bio-metric cards are currently being used as a pilot project in...

-The Business Standard   Much depends on a strong implementation framework but the imposition of a cap by the Planning Commission could lead to arbitrary exclusions. Himanshu Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University The methodology, which is based on the framework suggested by the Saxena Committee, uses indicators that have been refined using a large-scale pilot survey There are over 400 million poor (the number varies depending on which estimate you...

Bringing an aggressive outlook to the ministry of rural development, Jairam Ramesh, who took charge of the portfolio in July, has attempted to address and fast-track contentious issues such as the proposed land acquisition legislation and the census for identifying households below the poverty line (BPL). Ramesh spoke in an interview about his blueprint for the ministry and revisiting controversial elements, including identifying the poor and poverty caps imposed by...