-The Times of India THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The National Bankfor Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has unveiled an ambitious Rs 5,320 crore plan for various development activities in the state this year. The bank has allocated Rs 2,075 crore for short-term agriculture activities which can go up to Rs 2,600 crore depending on the successful operations of the co-operative banks in the state. "For long -term investment in rural sector, NABARD has committed to provide...

The economic crisis, the ecological crisis and the food crisis are a reflection of an outmoded and fossilised economic paradigm. It is a paradigm that grew out of mobilising resources for the war by creating the category of “growth”. It is rooted in the age of oil and fossil fuels. It is fossilised because it is obsolete, a product of the age of fossil fuels. If we have to address...

They prefer to migrate to cities to earn a Livelihood ‘Apply for work, get work, and get paid on time.' This is how the Union government's scheme promising 100 days of guaranteed work in a financial year to a rural household took off in 2006. However, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has failed to come as a relief for people especially those in drought-hit regions of the...

The National Advisory Council will ask the Centre to focus the ongoing socio-economic caste census on enumerating and classifying denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, or DNTs. The plan is to give these groups priority while issuing unique identity cards and introducing laws that will grant them explicit recognition on the lines of the 1992 statute on minorities. The NAC said special directives must be issued to the housing and urban poverty alleviation...

-PTI Government came under attack in the Lok Sabha today on the issue of price rise with the Left parties demanding that an all-party meeting as also a conference of Chief Ministers be convened soon to take concrete steps to check the price line.  Raising the issue during Zero Hour, CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharia accused the government of "total failure" in reining prices despite several assurances from the Prime Minister and the...