Non-urea fertilizer prices were freed in April 2010, but GSFCL, DFPCL, RCF still got gas at regulated prices The fertilizer ministry is considering asking three non-urea fertilizer makers to return part of the gains they have made since April 2010 on account of gas supplied to them at regulated prices while they were allowed to sell their products at market prices. Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd (RCF), Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals...

Officials may pocket the wage increases, but the wage level in MGNREGA seems just enough to induce workers to turn up. This year marks the sixth anniversary of the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India's landmark right-to-work programme. The Act guarantees 100 days of paid employment to every rural household in India (up to 850 million people), regardless of eligibility criteria, and establishes the government's...

The professional divide on Tendulkar's estimation goes a long way back A committee is being set up to devise yet another methodology to estimate poverty in India. The step has led to some unhappiness among economists and experts that it amounts to junking the services and competence of an expert like the late Suresh Tendulkar, whose study is sought to be replaced. Under pressure from all sides over its estimate of people...

Manual scavenging is still widespread and India has a long way to go in getting rid of the scourge, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has said. Over 1 per cent of all households in the country still rely on the practice and neither urban nor rural areas are immune to it, Ramesh said on Tuesday citing recent census data. “The census results are a shocker. Manual scavenging is very much there in...

Human-animal conflict, difficult terrain come in their way Until about two-and-a-half years ago, 10-year-old K. Nagaraj would go to Kovai Courtrallam every day, where he hawked fruits and snacks to tourists. On one such day, officials of the National Child Labour Project found the lad selling titbits and whisked him away to the special centre for rehabilitating child workers at Karunya Nagar, about 30-km west of Coimbatore. Nagaraj who was admitted to class...