The world population is estimated to reach nine billion by 2050. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that global food production needs to increase 70 per cent by 2050 compared to average 2005-07 levels to feed the rising global population. Clearly, a large part of the consumption will happen in India and China; which would require an additional 1.6 billion hectares of land to be brought into cultivation compared to...

Contractors complete the work by employing some other labourers and using machines An inquiry into the lathi-charge on protesting farmers in Koppal has brought to light the nexus between contractors and labourers. The inquiry conducted by the Koppal taluk panchayat executive officer in all the five gram panchayats - Boodagumpa, Irkalgad, Hasgal, Indargi and Madinur - has revealed that the labourers who staged the protest had not registered themselves seeking jobs under...

An evaluation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the State has found several shortcomings in the implementation including corruption, inefficiency and lack of awareness about the programme. The draft of the evaluation, conducted by two researchers of the National Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) has found that while the rules stipulate that each worker entitled to get 100 days of employment under the scheme should have...

At a time when there are reports of gross irregularities committed in the implementation of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the state, a success of the scheme has drawn the attention of many. With the district experiencing scanty rainfall for the last three years, farmers at Hanhat panchayat of Kairo block were hardly getting any paddy to fulfil their annual requirement. But a MGNREGA...

For a poor boy from the dark heart of tribal India, constable Kartam Surya has done well. An 8th class pass from the village of Misma in South Bastar’s Dantewada district — in the so-called Maoist 'liberated zone' in Chhattisgarh — 26-year-old Surya makes sure he gives his father, a marginal farmer scratching a living from the land, enough money to live in peace and comfort. "Surya is a good son...