The chattering classes of urban India are engaged in animated discussions about Didi, scams, policy paralysis , faltering reforms and declining growth. Meanwhile, the farming classes, who haven't seen much reform since the Green Revolution 50 years ago, continue to combine bits of modern technology with their ingenious capacity for 'jugaad' in transforming traditional agriculture. Here are a few examples. The tractor displaced the bullock in ploughing and other farm operations....

-The Times of India The national project to give unique identity numbers to all Indians, and enable welfare payments electronically, is now facing a snub from the very part of the government that funds it, and has been its most staunch supporter so far: The finance ministry. Two moves initiated by the banking division in the finance ministry over the past three months appear to duplicate and bypass the work being done...

-PTI Internet revolution has bypassed rural India with less than half a per cent of families having the facility at home as against 6 per cent in cities, reveals a government survey. "At all India level only about 0.4 per cent of rural households had access to Internet at home as compared to about 6 per cent of urban households," said the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report on expenditure in 2009-10. Reflecting...

Dalits, OBCs in India’s colleges are using beef as a symbol of a resurgent identity     “Non-Brahmins have evidently undergone a revolution. From being beef-eaters to have become non-beef-eaters was indeed a revolution. But if non-Brahmins underwent one revolution, Brahmins had undergone two. They gave up beef-eating, which was one revolution. To have given up meat-eating altogether and become vegetarians was another revolution.”     —B.R. Ambedkar *** The Beef Menu     Available In Kerala,...

-PTI About 60 per cent of India's rural population lives on less than Rs 35 a day and nearly as many in cities live on Rs 66 a day, reveals a government survey on income and expenditure. "In terms of average per capita daily expenditure, it comes out to be about Rs 35 in rural and Rs 66 in urban India. About 60 per cent of the population live with these expenditures...