-The Indian Express We want Prime Minister Narendra Modi to succeed in his national campaign to tackle the vast problems of the poor in Bharat. But his one-time contractor turned Union minister for rural development is succeeding in making his own prime minister look contradictory and indecisive to the nation and the world. The prime minister talks about constructing toilets and improving sanitation, opening bank accounts for every poor, excluded family,...

-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...

-The Hindu Low output and land fragmentation are critical issues, says survey Tamil Nadu: The writing on the wall for Tamil Nadu in agriculture is pretty clear, though the State's grain production during 2013-14 was good. The latest Economic Appraisal of the government has shown that Tamil Nadu needs out-of-the-box policies to tackle agriculture production and its impact on food inflation. The State did well in 2013-14 to bounce back from a nightmare drought...

-The Times of India PATIALA (Punjab): Even as Haryana is going to elections amid political parties' claims about development, a recently published study in a reputed economic journal has revealed that over 80% farmers in the state are reeling under debt. The study also exposed that nearly a same number of farmers are living below poverty line if one goes by the World Bank's definition of "moderate poverty", which means an earning...

-The Hindu Average size of landholding has shrunk to 0.80 hectares during 2010-11 Chennai: Land available for farming in Tamil Nadu is going down year by year. There seems no end to fragmentation. According to the latest report of the Department of Evaluation and Applied Research (DEAR) on the State's economic appraisal for the period from 2011-12 to 2013-14, the average size of landholding has shrunk from 1.45 hectares during 1970-71 to 0.80...