-The Economic Times Every concerned and right-thinking citizen of this country wants poverty to be reduced as early as possible. Governments and policymakers have given assurances, time and again, that they are making their earnest efforts in that direction. Yet, there is a big debate in the country, ranging from the very definition of poverty to the number of people below the poverty line. Some academic stalwarts have devoted almost their whole...
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Land acquired over past decade could have produced food for a billion people-John Vidal
-The Guardian Oxfam calls on World Bank to stop backing foreign investors who acquire land for biofuels that could produce food International land investors and biofuel producers have taken over land around the world that could feed nearly 1 billion people. Analysis by Oxfam of several thousand land deals completed in the last decade shows that an area eight times the size of the UK has been left idle by speculators or is...
More »Dalits see smallest rise in wages -Sidhartha
-The Times of India Dalits have once again lost out, this time on wages in rural areas. A first-of-its-kind data released by the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) has revealed that during the last eight years - between April, 2004 and March, 2012 - the daily wages of cobblers in rural areas rose by 95%, the worst show among the 17 categories listed by the government's Labour Bureau. The all-India data compiled...
More »Aquifer atlas shows depletion in north India -Gargi Parsai
-The Hindu India’s first aquifer atlas points to a sharp decline in groundwater levels in several parts of Delhi, West Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan. The atlas, compiled by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) under the Union Ministry of Water Resources, says within the national capital, South-West Delhi is worst affected by depleting groundwater levels. “One of the critical challenges during the 12th Five-Year Plan is to evolve strategies to manage ground...
More »Agriculture back in focus as growth estimate gets downgraded by banks like Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered-Gayatri Nayak
-The Economic Times When the country was growing at more than 8 per cent for about a decade, services and manufacturing were the darlings of policy-makers, investors and talking heads. Agriculture, a segment that employs nearly half the hundred crore population of the country, was hardly mentioned even in passing. This year, thanks to a poor monsoon, suddenly the farmers are the centre of India's growth story, or the lack of...
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