Bihar has been in the news recently for recording an average growth rate of 11.3 per cent for the period between 2004 and 2009. Much has been written about the quality of governance and the improved state of roads. This is indeed commendable, and no mean achievement, for a State that had virtually become a “development outcast”. I was pleasantly surprised to note on a recent trip to Bihar the...

Are the world and human society in general ready and willing to take action on critical issues that require a major change in the manner in which we produce and consume goods and services?  The science of climate change is now well established. This is the result of painstaking work of over two decades carried out by thousands of scientists drawn from across the globe to assess every aspect of...

Post-independence policies have taken away all securities of the small farmer Historically, compared to other developing economies, India has had relatively smaller agricultural land-holdings. Mixed farming and animal tending was the backbone of small and marginal rain-fed agriculture. Diverse food crops along with animal produce ensured relatively balanced nutrition. But policies in independent India reduced diversity while increasing the market dependence of small farms. Small farmers became victims of policies favouring...

The demand for a separate state of Telangana has brought into focus the economic performance of small states. Data brought out by the Central Statistical Organisation do show that most of the reorganised states tend to grow faster post-reorganisation and smaller states such as Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have grown faster after achieving state-hood than before, and at a rate higher than the average for the country. Moreover, we find...

The Union government’s decision to revive a long-forgotten concept of primary producers’ companies (PPCs) ought to be welcomed. Such companies can help small farmers and individual craftsmen come together to derive economies of scale. The idea of farmers’ companies which extend the benefit of being a registered firm while allowing farmers to derive all the benefits of agricultural land ownership, was mooted nearly a decade ago. After much debate, the...