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...

The Centre could bring in a mechanism to stop entities from acquiring land beyond the project requirement, a practice which is at the heart of corruption and anger among landowners as seen in western UP. An amendment to the Land Acquisition Act could cap the maximum land to be acquired for different categories of projects or could install a process to check the feasibility of the demand for land. Acquisitions...

Cash transfers are now suggested by many as a silver bullet for addressing the problems that plague India’s anti-poverty programmes. This article argues instead for evidence-based policy and informed public debate to clarify the place, prospects and problems of cash transfers in India. By drawing on key empirical findings from academic and grey literature across the world an attempt is made to draw attention to three aspects of cash transfers...

The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...

-PTI   Jharkhand PCC today welcomed the Union rural development ministry's recommendation for CBI probe into two cases of murder, apparently related to corruption and wage demands in MGNREGA scheme. "There are numerous instances of corruption cases in MGNREGA schemes and the CBI probe will unearth them," PCC general secretary-cum-spokesperson Sailesh Sinha said here. "The recommendation has come as a deterrent to the authorities, who are responsible to implement schemes under MGNREGA," he...