A lot of misinformation has been spread regarding the allotment of farmland plots by the NOIDA authority to Jayant Bhushan and Shanti Bhushan. In this connection it has to be emphasised that:    1. This allotment was not made under any discretionary quota    2. The total price of the property is Rs. 3.67 crores (not Rs. 35 lacs, as has been quoted in many newspapers) plus Rs 9.18 lakhs per annum...

Three pronouncements made on three consecutive days this month by the Supreme Court of India have brought relief to different groups of economically and socially deprived people. The beneficiaries include children sold out by poor parents to work in circuses as child labour; young men and women determined to get married crossing caste barriers and harassed for that very reason by ‘khap panchayats'; and the hungry poor across the country...

According to the third advance estimate, India’s foodgrain production in the current farm year (to end in June 2011) will be a record 235.88 million tonnes, including an all-time high wheat output of 84.27 million tonnes against 81.47 million tonnes projected earlier. Ahead of the wheat harvest, the country had buffer foodgrain stock of 47 million tonnes at the start of 2011 in the central pool. A buffer close to double...

Expectations of changes resulting from a movement bereft of a clear political and ideological thrust would be far-fetched. FROM the vacuum left by mainstream politics to the confusions of ideology and practice emerging out of half-baked socio-political engagement – the political trajectory of Anna Hazare's “anti-corruption” satyagraha movement demanding early introduction of the Lokpal Bill in Parliament can well be summed up thus. The wide support that the movement received from...

The case of each areca grower who has taken loans from cooperative societies or banks will be studied individually to determine whether the farmer is genuinely unable to repay the loan. This decision was taken at a meeting of areca growers with Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav and officials of various departments on Thursday. Mr. Yadav made the suggestion after listening to a delegation of farmers, most of them members of the Karnataka...