The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is giving final touches to two reports where it has pointed out anomalies in allocation of funds under the centrally-runJNNURM scheme and UPA government's debt waiver to farmers in 2008, something the opposition may use as a stick to beat the government during the budget session.  In the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the CAG, sources said, is reviewing how central funds were...

The government's ambitious economic census to create a comprehensive database of the economic profile of India's households and businesses has been pushed back again because of lack of personnel.  The census department is right now busy with the survey to enumerate people below poverty line and feels a simultaneous economic survey will stretch its resources undermining the data quality.  "There has been a decision taken to delay the economic census as conducting...

The data show that rural families simply cannot subsist on farm incomes alone There must be a bit of Gandhi in all of us because often our idea of India ultimately boils down to the kisan as the standard bearer of the lakhs of villages that comprise India. Perhaps that is why I tend to look for the signs of transformation in the lives of Indian farmers. The changes in...

The advance estimate of national income in 2011-12, released recently by the Central Statistical Organisation points to a decline in India’s GDP growth rate from 8.4 per cent last year to 6.9 per this year. The government, obsessed with growth rates, is deeply disappointed. Hence there is already talk of the need to respond and demands that the Reserve Bank of India should reduce interest rates are being heard. There...

Observed changes in rainfall patterns and increased temperatures, particularly in the North-Eastern region, are the major projections on which Indian agriculture scientists are pegging their “mitigation and adaptation” plans in the farm sector in the absence of definitive long-term and area-specific data on climate change. Acknowledging that in India the “climate system is extremely complex and poorly understood in terms of extent, timing and impact”, Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR)...