Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s suggestion to ban Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) during farming season may not get government’s approval. Instead, the MGNREGA guidelines may be amended to increasing synergy between the world’s biggest social security scheme and agriculture sector to improve production. A set of green methodologies could be included in works allowed under the scheme. Pawar had written to Prime Minister on November 28 seeking the ban....

-Live Mint The National Food Security Bill (NFSB) has finally been cleared by the cabinet. While this should have been seen as an important step forward towards the objective of food security for all, the Bill has come under severe criticism for being too ambitious and disastrous for the economy. While some of these fictitious numbers are expected from the media, concerns have also been raised by senior government functionaries, notably...

-The Business Standard   Faced with a supply glut, potato farmers in Gujarat headed to streets and dumped thousands of kilos of potato in Deesa, a major potato market in the state on Tuesday. Farmers demanded an intervention from the state government with a financial assistance to the farmers, who are facing a steep fall in the potato prices at Rs 1 per kg in recent weeks. "We had approached the government about...

Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, in an article on left-wing extremism (“From Tirupati to Pashupati?” The Hindu , October 14, 2011), observed candidly: “It is not the naxals who have created the ground conditions ripe for their ideology — it is the singular failure of successive governments both in the States and the Centre.” There lay the main cause of the festering sore of naxalism, often characterised as left-wing...

The central government claims that allowing foreign direct investment into India’s retail sector will benefit small farmers, expand employment and lower food inflation. What has been the experience in India with organised retail so far and what has been the global experience with FDI? Sukhpal Singh (sukhpal@iegindia.org) is currently at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. After being under relentless attack for a week, the United Progressiv Alliance government was forced to...