An inquiry committee appointed by the Supreme Court to look into the functioning of the public distribution system has just turned in a damning report to the effect that the system is riddled with corruption and has virtually collapsed in some states. This observation will not come as a surprise to most people. Indeed, it is not a coincidence that even the Central government’s own Economic Survey mentions the need...

Asha, a Rag picker holds out a roti with salt and says, "Most days we eat only this. Rice is Rs 20 a kilo. We can't afford two rice meals a day." "It pains to see my family go hungry. But what can you do with Rs. 100 income a day?", adds rickshaw puller, Mohammad Zafar.  Zaffar and Asha are homeless who earn about Rs 100 a day for their...

A meticulously researched book by A. Vaidyanathan, Agricultural Growth in India: Role of Technology, Incentives and Institutions, is an illuminating scholarly work. Thinking about it one realizes the dismal and declining state of Indian agriculture and the poor governance at both Central and state government levels that has brought it to this sorry pass. A valuable compendium of data and analysis of Indian agriculture since Independence, it is a valuable...

The Planning Commission has offered an objective assessment of the unsatisfactory situation as far as Indian agriculture is concerned in its mid-term appraisal of the 11th Five-Year Plan. The commission has done well to remind us that the farm sector is still subject to strangulating controls that dissuade private investment in key areas, including logistics and storage. The government’s agricultural pricing policies, which have rendered minimum support prices (MSPs) the...

A handful of Jarawa tribesmen recently broke into a house in the village of Mathura in the Andaman islands. They left after taking away rice, sugar and coconut. The first people to successfully migrate out of Africa, the Jarawas came to the Andaman islands 60,000 years ago, scientists believe. Essentially hunter-gatherers, the tribespeople have traditionally survived on the raw meat of wild boar. But in the 1970s, a road (the...