The stalled Land Acquisition Bill should be completely overhauled. In both China and India the issue of land acquisition has become politically very sensitive. In China by official reports more than 66 million farmers have been dislocated in recent years for various commercial development projects. Local officials in cahoots with local business have been rather cavalier in this matter, and this has inflamed passions in the countryside. In India the...

The time has come for a comprehensive right-to-food law to tackle the deprivation and food insecurity that haunts India.  Over the last decade or so, a series of developments have drawn attention to the problem of food security. These are the persistence of hunger in many parts of the country being juxtaposed with food surpluses and stocks; the adverse impact of globalisation on agriculture and rising food prices resulting in...

Envisioning NREGA-II is important to realise the unfulfilled dreams of NREGA-I, which has failed thus far to break free of the shackles of a debilitating past.  The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) promises a revolutionary demand-driven, people-centred development programme. Planning, implementation and social audit by gram sabhas and gram panchayats can engender millions of sustainable livelihoods following initial rounds of wage employment. But NREGA-I has had to battle against...

KEY TRENDS   • Suicide by self-employed persons in agriculture as a percentage of total suicides at the national level stood at 15.6 percent in 1996, 16.3 percent in 2002, 14.4 percent in 2006, 13.7 percent in 2009, 11.9 percent in 2010, 10.3 percent in 2011, 11.4 percent in 2012 and 8.73 percent in 2013. Suicides committed in the farming sector (by farmers plus agricultural labourers) as a proportion of total suicides in India was 9.4 percent in...

KEY TRENDS    • The proportion of households which completed 100 days of wage employment under MGNREGA in total households that worked was 6.02 percent in 2014-15, 10.07 percent in 2015-16, 7.79 percent in 2016-17 and 5.78 percent in 2017-18 @$ • Completed works as a proportion of total works was 30.15 percent in 2014-15, 29.39 percent in 2015-16, 40.27 percent in 2016-17, 32.01 percent in 2017-18 and 3.3 percent in 2018-19 (as on 7th May, 2018) @$   • In...