It is not often that a social security programme the size of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS - New Delhi has spent Rs 40,000 crore on it in 2010/11 alone - faces an existential moment. But, April 2011 will present one such crossroad: the end of the term of a bureaucrat widely acknowledged as the prime mover behind the five-year old scheme. Brought in six years ago to the Centre from her parent...
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Govt focuses on market linkages for farmers to boost pulses yield by Sanjeeb Mukherjee
Plans to set up 150 farmer-producer organisations in 11 states. The government is planning to provide market linkages for farmers growing pulses as part of a programme announced in the Budget to improve their production, as scarcity of this essential item was one of the major contributors to food inflation a few years back. “The share of pulses growers in the consumer price is very low on account of a lack of...
More »Maoist hand in Drèze aide’s death
Two aides of economist Jean Drèze were targeted by unscrupulous contractors, suspected to have been backed by Maoists, for exposing rampant corruption in the Centre’s flagship rural job scheme in a Latehar village late last night. Niyamat Ansari died after he was beaten up mercilessly by a 12-member gang at Jerua village, 130km from the state capital, but his friend and colleague Bhukan Singh had a narrow escape as he wasn’t...
More »For India’s Farmers, a Bare-Bones Drip System by Vikas Bajaj
During a recent trip to a rural part of western India to report on rising food prices, I met two kinds of farmers — those with access to irrigation and those without. The differences between the two were stark. Those with drip irrigation or sprinklers invariably were reaping rich harvests and profits. But the vast majority of India’s farmers fall in the second camp: they water their crops by flooding their...
More »Infrastructure push vital to achieve growth target by Sujay Mehdudia
Continued poor performance of some key infrastructure sectors cause for concern As India is on the path of achieving 8.5 per cent economic growth, aiming to exceed the 9 per cent growth mark next fiscal, the biggest worrying factor that could derail this horse power of growth and play spoilsport in the “growth story” of the UPA II government is the poor state of infrastructure and its tardy pace of development...
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