Anchekatti Rangaswamy, 19, is shifting large rocks from the acres of barren farm land on the outskirts of Yerraguntla, a village 65 km from Kurnool, the gateway to Andhra Pradesh’s drought-prone Rayalaseema region. The work he does during his summer break from college will make the rocky land, belonging to marginal farmers in the area, slightly more cultivable. And the wages the teenager will earn from the job under the Mahatma...

A decade-old scheme to organize the rural poor into self-help groups and impart training to them has brought hundreds of thousands above the poverty line, says the rural development ministry, which executes the programme. Some 4.5 million people living below the poverty line have been trained under the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, or SGSY, while 3.5 million self-help groups (SHGs) have been created since its launch in 1999. An evaluation of SGSY...

The Centre has so far not addressed the problem of climate change impact on agriculture and food sector, a panel of experts participating in a national conference on ‘Ensuring Food Security in a Changing Climate' observed here on Saturday. While it is estimated that agriculture in the productive areas of South Asia will be amongst the worst affected, with predictions that almost 40 per cent of the production potential could be...

Funds allocated for the United Progressive Alliance government’s flagship rural welfare scheme, although the highest for any single social welfare programme, are enough to meet only about half its objective, says a report by a legislative panel. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) guarantees at least 100 days of work a year for one member of every poor rural household. The parliamentary standing committee on rural development, which assessed...

The government is spending billions of dollars on welfare schemes, and plans even more this year. But that is news to Poona, whose daughter may soon die from that stain on India's growth story -- malnutrition. Poona, who married at 14 and breaks quarry stones for a living, shielded her daughter's sunken face from a harsh summer sun with her blue sari. She does not know Urmila's weight, but the...