-The Telegraph Standard model: The state provides a poor woman employment for 58 days a year, under the 100-day job guarantee scheme, at (Bengal's) daily wage rate of Rs 169. Cost: about Rs 20,000 over two years. Alternative: The state provides her an asset - maybe a small grocery - teaches her to run it and monitors her progress while giving a daily stipend for her consumption needs and ensuring basic healthcare...

-The Indian Express While tractor sales trebled during FY04-14, the last year saw a reversal in the trend with the agri industry facing multiple issues. If there is one indicator capturing the changes that took place in rural India over the past decade, along with the emerging signs of distress in the last year, it is the sales of tractors. Between 2003-04 and 2013-14, domestic tractor sales more than trebled from under...

Due to the annual decline in under-5 mortality rate by almost 7% during 2008-13, the Government is hopeful of India attaining the target 5 of Millennium Development Goal-4 i.e. reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the U5MR. This has been revealed in a press release on checking child mortality rate by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, dated 28 April, 2015.   However, experts think that this will be...

-DNA India Constant decrease in investment on research and development blamed for carelessly conceived schemes A fishing project in the deserts of Rajasthan, cold storage facilities for bananas in Maharashtra's no-banana Pune district, milk coolers in Gujarat's Sagbara region where there is no milk production and no electricity either… Those are just some of the examples of carelessly conceived government schemes to bolster farm growth at a time share of the...

-Outlook Mumbai: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today hinted at more sops for the troubled farmers, saying the unseasonal rains in March have resulted in an "agrarian crisis". Jaitley asserted that the government is committed to allocate more resources to the farm sector, which he identified as the biggest challenge for high growth. "Agriculture is the biggest challenge and the unseasonal rains have resulted in an agrarian crisis," Jaitley said here this evening at...