-The Indian Express   Available data suggests the programme has been effective in reducing rural poverty and gender discrimination Nirmala Sitharaman's misinformation (‘How not to run a programme', IE, May 9) on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which employs one in every four Indian rural households every year, is disappointing. Consider these facts. For the first time in over two decades, the increase in rural consumption (a proxy indicator...

-The Hindu A multi-commodity farming system consisting of rice, fish, broiler duck and male buffalo was evaluated at the Regional Agricultural Research Station, Kumarakom, under the Kerala Agricultural University for productivity, income, cropping intensity and generation of employment. The study revealed that a one hectare paddy holder in kuttanad has the carrying capacity of a minimum of 5,000 fishes, 750 broiler ducks and 3-5 male buffaloes in addition to rice. In this...

-The Indian Express How Punjab is making the best use of the flawed public distribution system. Inclusive economic growth is a political, economic and social necessity. The question is: what is the right strategy to ensure this? Most of our programmes to help the underprivileged have suffered from leakages and inefficiencies, so that the benefits have not accrued to the targeted groups but the strain on our fiscal deficit remains. Subsidies are...

-The Hindu     Aberrations in monsoon behaviour are not uncommon. What is new is the difficulty in forecasting caused by factors coming under the generic title, ‘Climate change.' Forecasts by the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum and the India Meteorological Department indicate that the south-west monsoon rainfall may be deficient. Also, there is a possibility of the evolution of an El Niño event during June to September. There is a 45 per cent...

-The Business Standard   Of the 46 projects, some have been scaled up after completion of pilot projects Chennai: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has supported 46 innovative projects, through its Nabard-SDC Rural Innovation Fund (RIF), as on February 2014. The fund was set up jointly with the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC). These projects were sponsored so as to create more jobs in the rural areas...