-IANS In the early days after the quota of women's elected membership -- initially 33 per cent and later raised to 50 per cent in 20 of the 28 states -- was introduced, many women were acting as proxies for their male relative. UNITED NATIONS: Two women sarpanchs have brought to the UN the story of India changing the rural power structure by empowering women through a programme of gender equality that...

-The Hindu Business Line Noted Gandhian economist Dr Sudarshan Iyengar surveys the distressed agricultural landscape, pinpoints its weaknesses, and prescribes solutions with their roots in Gandhian agronomics. Edited excerpts from an interview to BusinessLine: * Given the agrarian crisis in India today, how relevant are Gandhi's economic principles based on the village economy, and equitable distribution of resources? They are relevant in the context of Gandhi's view of gram swaraj (village self-rule), which...

-The New Indian Express The area under cultivation in Kerala has seen a major drop over the decades due to urbanisation. But there is an increased interest among the rural and urban folks to go back to agriculture. Kerala has long been a consumer state, depending on neighbours to meet its food requirements. Though the state has unique and diverse agro-climatic conditions in various regions, which enable it to cultivate many types...

-The Indian Express Why tax sops are not enough? What can policy makers do? The story so far: A worryingly persistent slowdown dragged economic growth in India down to 5% in the fiscal first quarter, its weakest pace in more than six years. And while the recent weeks have seen the possible reasons for the slowdown, as well as the government’s policy measures to ostensibly help revive the economy being put under...

-The Hindu Putting more money in the hands of rural households will stir up the economy The government’s statistical machinery has begun work on revising the indices that capture the trends in consumer prices experienced in Rural India. This opens up the prospect for an upward revision in the wages paid out to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The current national average wage is just about...