-Press Information Bureau   Government has said that there is no definite findings indicating shortage of farm labourers due to Mahatma Gandhi National rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Since MGNREGA is a demand driven scheme, backed by legislation, State Governments are obliged to provide up to 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household for doing unskilled manual work, if demanded, at any time of the...

-Times Now TV   It is allies versus the Congress over the draft Food Security Bill. Sources have told TIMES NOW that Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has expressed his reservations over the Food Bill over its huge financial implications on the Government as it proposes to increase food subsidy by over 30,000 crore on a Government already under massive financial stress and over the need for greater food grain procurement to...

-Press Information Bureau   The National Scheduled Tribes Finance and Development Corporation (NSTFDC) has launched an Education Loan Scheme for students belonging to scheduled Tribes in the country in the month of November, 2011. The requirement for availing benefits of the scheme are that the annual family income of the Scheduled Tribe candidate shall be upto double the poverty line and the candidate is willing to pursue technical/professional education, including Ph.D. in...

-Associated Press   Bootleg liquor containing toxic methanol killed 143 people and sickened dozens more who drank the cheap, illicit brew bought at small shops in West Bengal, officials said Thursday. Police arrested 10 suspected bootleggers. Emergency medical teams rushed to the village outside Kolkata, and thousands of relatives, many of them wailing in grief, gathered outside the packed hospital. Inside, dead bodies lay on the floor covered in quilts, while the ill...

It is clearly the absence of political will rather than a paucity of ideas that is responsible for the country's agrarian crisis. EXACTLY seven years ago this month, the Commission on Farmers' Welfare, appointed by the government of Andhra Pradesh, submitted its report to the then Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. His Congress government assumed office earlier that year replacing the Telegu Desam Party regime led by N. Chandrababu Naidu, which...