-The Telegraph Nearly three-fourths of India’s land area received poor rainfall during the first four weeks of the monsoon season, and an active monsoon phase is unlikely within the next week, weather scientists said today. The poor rainfall has stirred concern among agro-meteorology scientists, tasked with translating weather information into advisories for farmers throughout the year, as the period for paddy transplantation draws closer. “Rain during July is always crucial, but this year...
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NREGA's non-existent impact on migrant labourers-Rukmini Shrinivasan
PATIALA/SANGRUR: Everyone agrees that theNREGA is causing a shortage of agricultural labour. Everyone, that is, except the workers themselves. For the last two years, the "success" of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (commonly referred to as NREGA) in reducing the number of men migrating out of India's poorest states has become something of a truism. In Punjab, this has resulted in dozens of news articles about the shortage...
More »Many chief ministers want FDI in multi-brand retail: Sharma
-IANS Many chief ministers, including non-Congress ones, support the proposal to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said Wednesday. "Now you have a fairly good number of chief ministers who have come out in support...We have continued a dialogue in a democratic spirit, a very open dialogue with the states," Sharma told reporters here after Coca-Cola Chairman Muhtar Kent met him. Sharma said he had...
More »Devinder Sharma, food and trade policy analyst interviewed by GOI Monitor
IRONY RUNS its play every year in India as food grains rot in godowns while 23 crore people go hungry every day. GOI Monitor talks to food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma on the issues stalking agriculture and public distribution One of the reasons for surplus food not reaching the needy is that states are not picking up the grain. Why is this happening? Food grain procurement and distribution is...
More »A new beginning
-The Indian Express Push on FDI in multibrand retail could be the trigger for UPA 2’s image makeover For a government with its back to the wall and pretty much nowhere to go, it’s time to simply get on with it. Now that the Parliament’s budget session is over, the presidential candidate has been announced and the next round of state elections is still some way off, the government is beginning to...
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