-The Hindu The average rural Indian household is a marginal landowner, growing mainly cereals on a small patch of land and reliant on groundwater for irrigation, new official data show. Over 80 per cent of rural households have marginal landholdings of less than one hectare (10,000 square metres) and just seven per cent own more than two hectares, data on household land ownership from the National Sample Survey Office show. Tribal people are...
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Three charts that show why reservations are desirable -Roshan Kishore and Dipti Jain
-Livemint.com Scheduled castes are the most backward, followed by scheduled tribes and other backward classes, shows NSSO data In October, a two-judge Supreme Court bench commented that “national interest requires doing away with all forms of reservations in higher education”. The judges also expressed regret that “some privileges remained unchanged” even after 68 years of independence. Debate on reservations has always been of a polarizing nature in India and abroad. Arguments for...
More »65 die of starvation, future bleak for lakhs of north Bengal tea workers
-DNA The situation of hunger has now resulted in several starvation deaths. In the last six months, 65 workers have died, with 21 dead in Birpara tea estate, 16 in Hantapara, 15 in Dhumchipara, 7 in Gargandya and 6 in Nageswari. At about 3 pm on September 15 early this year, Rajman Lohar passed away in his modest home in Hantapara. A permanent worker at the Hantapara Tea Estate, owned by the...
More »Machines set to foray into job scheme -Basant Kumar Mohanty
-The Telegraph New Delhi: The national rural employment scheme is set to allow use of labour-displacing machinery in all activities in a move that, social activists say, would defeat the objective of guaranteed 100 days' work to a rural household. The rural development ministry is set to amend its guidelines under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to allow use of machinery such as JCBs, rollers, mechanical mixers and...
More »Government to start electronic transfer of MGNREGA wages from 2016 in Kerala
-PTI NEW DELHI: To prevent leakages in the MGNREGA programme, the government will introduce the system for electronic transfer of wages to the beneficiaries from January 1 next year in Kerala, Lok Sabha was informed today. An additional Rs 2,000 crore would be sought from the Finance Ministry towards ensuring that MNREGA wages are at par with the agriculture wages fixed by some states, Rural Development Minister Birender Singh said. Mahatma Gandhi National...
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