Amidst the prevailing gloominess over agrarian crisis, a recently released report says that the growth rate of agricultural output in both India and China were the same during 2008-2013. The agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) of both these countries on an average grew at 3.3 percent per annum during that period. The latest available data from the 2016 Global Food Policy Report, however, indicates that the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka...
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Punjab opens its heart - and purse - to farmers -Sanjeeb Mukherjee & Archis Mohan
-Business Standard Instead of addressing systemic problems in agriculture, farm politics in the state is about how much money the government can offer the farmer as a dole The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), led by Parkash Singh Badal and son Sukhbir, was in a dilemma a year before the 2012 Assembly elections in Punjab. The Akalis had ruled Punjab since 2007 but no party had ever returned to power for a second...
More »Govt. to focus on Swachh Bharat on second anniversary -Somesh Jha
-The Hindu It has drafted a detailed plan for 2016-17 with different themes. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government will mark its second anniversary with all the Ministries taking mass pledges on the Swachh Bharat portal on May 26 this year. In a bid to make Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project Swachh Bharat Mission a mass movement, the government has drafted a detailed plan for every day of 2016-17 with different themes...
More »Despite being around for a decade, MGNREGS continues to be plagued by leakages, fraud -Dinesh Narayanan
-The Economic Times I will never make the mistake of discontinuing M(G)NREGA; because it is a living testimony of your failures. After 60 years of Independence you had to make people dig ditches — Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In that March 2015 speech in Parliament, Prime Minister Modi taunted the Congress Party that the rural job guarantee programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was required because of the party's...
More »The return of paternalism -Neera Chandhoke
-The Hindu The steps taken towards social democracy are being reversed. What we have now are social insurance policies from above. This subverts the entire project of giving voice to the voiceless. India has paid a heavy price for failing to institutionalise social democracy It is generally agreed that theories of social democracy, in comparison to theories of formal political democracy, take cognisance of background inequalities that hamper the realisation of basic...
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