In India peasantry is under assault. There is a five-pronged attack on this class and the mighty Indian state is sometimes an active and sometimes a passive abettor. The first point of attack is from the corporate sector. The corporate sector is in a land grab mode. Though not justified, one could understand their urge to get land for industry and real estate purposes. Not that they are causing aggressive...

SINCE THE RELEASE OF THE ECONOMIC Survey, 2010, in February, much has been discussed — but far less debated — on the issue of substituting India’s public distribution system (PDS) with a food coupon-based targeted subsidy programme to benefit the below-poverty-line (BPL) families. As a leading proponent of this programme, the economic adviser to the finance ministry, Kaushik Basu, has gone on record advocating the use of food coupons declaring...

Planning Commission Member, Professor Abhijit Sen, has observed that bad management of food grains and a high economic growth rate, particularly in the non-agricultural sectors, had led to spiralling prices of food grains. Prof. Sen was delivering the Prof. L S. Venkataramanan Memorial Lecture on ‘Inclusive Growth', at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, here on Thursday. Prof. Sen said the economic growth rate of 9 per cent led to increased...

India grapples with endemic backwardness in over 200 districts while some sectors and sections make global headlines. The Centre on Market Solutions to Poverty's report, Creating Vibrant Public-Private-Panchayat Partnerships for Inclusive Growth through Inclusive Governance explores this paradox by looking at the ground-level realities in local governance through the Panchayati Raj, the issues of agricultural productivity and value addition, and the role that the business sector could play in rural...

The growth rate of agriculture was three per cent and that of manufacturing was 4.5 per cent during the first three decades after independence. The growth rate for agriculture has slipped to 2.8 per cent while that for manufacturing has increased to 6.4 per cent during the last 15 years. Farmers continue to commit suicides across the country. The groundwater level is declining. The country has to import wheat, edible...