-Hindustan Times Eminent social scientist Jean Dreze has alleged that MGNREGS job cards have been cancelled in some states to meet targets of linking them with the Aadhaar project. Dreze’s remarks come amid a political row over the government’s attempt to expand the mandatory use of the country’s unique identity scheme. The scheme, launched under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, ensures employment to the rural population through one job...
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In loan waivers, 'moral hazard' and continued hope for political gains -Shaji Vikraman
-The Indian Express Urjit Patel has voiced concern publicly over the latest loan waiver — saying it engendered a moral hazard and undermined the honest credit culture. In February 1990, in the months preceding the build-up to the balance of payments crisis the next year, Madhu Dandavate, Finance Minister in V P Singh’s National Front government, announced a debt relief scheme for farmers to fulfill a promise made by the alliance in...
More »Drop in pulses prices despite good rains reveals India's flawed agri policy -Abhishek Waghmare
-IndiaSpend The drop comes despite a good monsoon in 2016 A good monsoon that led to record sowing and production of pulses–especially tur dal (pigeon pea)–has almost halved their wholesale and retail prices in 2017, a year after dal prices skyrocketed to Rs 200 per kg in some cities at the end of 2015. In many state-regulated agricultural markets of major tur-producing states such as Maharashtra and karnataka, prices have fallen to Rs...
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-Economic and Political Weekly NFHS-4 data shows improvements in health status, yet serious concerns remain. Data on India’s health status ought to inform policy. Unfortunately, this does not always follow. After a gap of 10 years, data from the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) was released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Like the previous surveys of 2005–06, 1998–99 and 1992–93, NFHS-4 provides information on demographic,...
More »India's sugarcane farmers: A cycle of debt and suicide -Janos Chiala & Vinith Xavier
-AlJazeera.com How rising debts, pesticides and erratic rainfall are pushing some farmers in southern India to suicide. karnataka: Farmers have worked the land of southern India for more than 10,000 years, making use of its fertile soil and abundant rains. Mahatma Gandhi placed Indian farmers at the centre of his vision for independence. In his 1909 book about Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule), he argued that farmers had "managed with the same kind...
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