The Union government will set up an independent financial institution to give funds for effective functioning of the self-help groups (SHGs) and better empowerment of the rural poor. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi announced this while launching the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), which will be funded through financial institutions. As of now, banks will be mobilised to extend loans to the tune of Rs. 6,800 crore this year at subsidised rates...
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Economists write to Sonia on Food Bill by Sanjeeb Mukherjee
Eminent economists have shot off a letter to National Advisory Council (NAC) Chairman Sonia Gandhi to ensure that the proposed Food Security Bill is quite comprehensive and excludes only a few rich people. They also want Sonia to get the Bill legislated in such a way it is not based on the current public distribution system (PDS) for all times to come as direct subsidy transfer could also be an...
More »Sonia to launch rural livelihood mission
-The Deccan Herald The Congress-led UPA Government is all set to re-launch its flagship rural self-employment scheme as a national mission to reach out to all the rural Below Poverty Line (BPL) families and link them to sustainable livelihood opportunities. Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will launch the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) at Banswara in Rajasthan on Saturday. Rural Development Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh said that the NRLM –...
More »The land debate by BG Verghese
Development has a multiplier effect in terms of employm-ent, secondary activity and revenue to state, while delay entails loss for everybody. Tolstoy’s famous question, “How much land does a man require?” was answered when the Count who had ruthlessly exploited his serfs was buried in a grave measuring 7x4x4 feet. And that, Tolstoy concluded, was all the land a man requires. Is corporate and infrastructural greed in India today destroying the small,...
More »Agrarian distress by Utsa Patnaik
The farmers' struggle against land acquisition only shows that from passive forms of protest they have turned to active forms of resistance. THE recent agitation by farmers in Uttar Pradesh against cropland acquisition for non-agricultural purposes is only the latest in a long series of protests by farmers and rural communities, which started a decade ago in different parts of the country and which gathered momentum over the past five...
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