To take on the discontentment against land acquisition process, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has cleared a draft bill for public comments. The minister's land acquisition and rehabilitation bill will be up on the ministry website just a fortnight into his term at Krish Bhawan. The Bill proposes a compensation of more than six times the circle rate of land, acquired for industrial and real estate projects. This is in...

July is a month when we need to remind ourselves how reforms have changed India since 1991, from vulnerability to resilience, whether to external shocks (say, oil) or internal ones (droughts). In 2009, we witnessed the worst drought since 1972, yet the agricultural growth rate stayed positive (0.4%), nor did we resort to any major cereal imports. And in 2010-11, we are likely to have a record harvest of 241 million...

Matter begins: What is the impact of the National Rural Employment Guarentee Act on rural wages? That is the question that the pundits are asking today. It's a query which feeds into a larger question. Six years have passed since NREGA became a legal reality. What is its village-level impact? It's a complex question to answer. NREGA undertakes to provide employment to anyone who asks for it. Which makes it...

-The Hindustan Times   Unacceptably high food prices are a result of slow and below-target farm growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Saturday. Singh said the farm growth had been less than the targeted 4% and a “consequence in recent years has been unacceptable levels of food price inflation”. He said he expected the Twelfth Plan to contain all measures required to accelerate agricultural growth. Speaking at a function to mark the foundation...

One lives to learn — or unlearn. The working head of what passes for this country’s Planning Commission is unambiguous about it. One important measure to fight inflation, he believes, is to raise prices. That is to say, to stop prices from rising, you must first raise prices. The gentleman has heartily endorsed the recent serial increases in the prices of petroleum products since such increases will, in his view,...