-The Hindu A NABARD survey says middlemen funded by banks have kept growers captive to high-interest loans Jammu: Kashmir's acres of undulating apple orchards may soon be waste lands, a survey by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) accessed by The Hindu shows. The Rs. 4,000-crore industry has been brought to its knees by a network of middle-order market functionaries comprising pre-harvest contractors (PHCs), commission agents (CAs) and wholesalers...
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India Jobs Program Scam Pays Wages to Dead Workers -Andrew MacAskill, Unni Krishnan & Tushar Dhara
-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...
More »GPS study finds forest land ‘wrongfully’ given to tribals-Vivek Deshpande
-The Indian Express Nagpur: A Maharashtra forest department study, based on GPS and satellite imagery, shows that "ineligible forest areas are being claimed and granted for land plots (pattas) under the Forest Rights Act." The FRA gives traditional forest dwellers the right over lands they had encroached for Farming, subject to a cutoff of December 31, 2005. The implementing authority is the tribal affairs department, a sore point with the forest...
More »Indian Express-ICIJ probe: Vijay Mallya, Ravikant Ruia in tax havens -Ritu Sarin
-The Indian Express The 612 Indians on the list of those who have invested in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands include two MPs, a former royal and top industrialists. RITU SARIN puts together details of 20 among them SONU LALCHAND MIRCHANDANI Mirchandani is the founder of popular consumer electronics firm Onida. Mirchandani and his wife, Soni, opened a BVI company called Strong Wing Overseas Ltd in 2006 with an authorised...
More »Harvesting food security-Baba Mayaram
-The Hindu At the foothills of Datla mountain of Satpuda Valley in the Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh is located the picturesque village of Dhadaw. Located on the banks of Dudhi River that also defines the boundary of the district, Dhadaw falls in the district's forest belt. Within the periphery of this village lies a world that has efficiently maintained the essence of traditional agricultural practices - a remarkable feat at...
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