-TheWire.in In Gujarat’s Chhota Udaipur, MNREGA has helped villagers increase their earnings, improved connectivity in the area and led to higher farm yields. In the ubiquitous environment of the withdrawal of the welfare state across the globe, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in India stands out as a critical and unique intervention. MNREGA is a social safety net that guarantees 100 days of employment to every rural household...
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Save the pulse farmer, here's how -Ashok Gulati
-The Financial Express The minimum that the govt can do is to remove all restrictions on a free market for pulses Last year, roughly at this time, the price of tur dal (pigeon pea) in the retail market was hovering around R180/kg. Prices of other pulses were not far behind. They were all spiraling up due to back-to-back droughts during 2014-15 and 2015-16. Production of all pulses had plunged to 16.5 million...
More »Agriculture: Here's why farmers are in trouble despite high pulse procurement
-The Financial Express Given the likely 22 million tonne production of pulses this year, up more than a third compared to last year, it is not surprising prices have crashed. In the case of tur, for instance, retail prices are down from R118 per kg in Delhi on October 1, 2016 to R89 on March 1. As a result of the surge in pulses inflation last year, rabi sowing increased by...
More »How the Black Economy Grew in Post-Independence India -Arun Kumar
-Caravan Magazine Arun Kumar is an eminent economist who has been studying the black economy in India for close to four decades. His 1999 book The Black Economy in India is among the foremost accounts of the black-money problem in the country. In Understanding the Black Economy and Black Money in India: An Enquiry into Causes, Consequences and Remedies, released in February 2017, Kumar discusses the misconceptions around black money, the...
More »Towards less-cash agriculture: Well before demonetisation, low credit-driven model came up in Dewas -Vivian Fernandes
-The Financial Express In Madhya Pradesh’s tribal districts of Dewas and Khargone, the NGO, Samaj Pragati Sahayog, discourages cash transactions for agricultural inputs. The interest rates are usurious and vary according to commodities. For fertiliser, it is dheda—loan for the stuff has to be repaid 1.5 times over by the end of the harvest season. For pesticides it is sawa, or 1.25 times. Even barter can be extortionate. One quintal of...
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