The government is collaborating with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to ensure that India’s flagship welfare programme leads to a tangible improvement in the human development index among the scheme’s beneficiaries. UNDP and the Union government have launched a pilot project aimed at making the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) more efficient and effective by coordinating it with other development programmes. “The idea is to leverage this massive...

There is an interesting debate on food security and we should get the Planning Commission’s perspective on this. But as I write this, the Planning Commission Web site still does not have the mid-term appraisal, so Yojana Bhavan must still be polishing it. This column has, over time, taken the position that the food security programme is really important and a country growing as fast as India simply cannot ignore...

Draft report claims investor interest is focussed on countries with weak land governance. A leaked World Bank report into investors from rich nations buying up African farmland has intensified campaigners' fears that the growing trend is marginalising local producers. After a spate of investments in African land by sovereign wealth funds looking for gains on rising commodity prices and by countries such as China worried about their own food security, the World...

Acting with determination and firm action, it should be possible for India to step up its agricultural growth rate to 10 per cent. The 11th Five Year Plan seeks to achieve 4 per cent growth rate in agriculture by the end of the Plan period. The Planning Commission is working towards an overall 9 per cent to 10 per cent growth rate. But the target of 4 per cent growth rate is...

The National Advisory Council's proposals on the Food Security Bill represent a bad deal for the poor. The struggle for an effective and equitable Food Security Bill (FSB) has received a setback with the disappointing proposals put forward by the National Advisory Council. There is a disturbing disjuncture between what is being claimed and the actual implications of the proposals. Indeed it may be said that the NAC proposals create new...