-The Hindu Business Line New structure facilitates inter-state co-operation The recently announced National Agricultural Market aims to bring about a unified market through networking of mandis to facilitate seamless flow of goods and information. This may not alter the State- dominated existing agricultural marketing structure; but it calls for redefining their role and functions to make the concept more inclusive for farmers. Fear of rejection The networking of markets is expected to enhance access to...

-FAO September’s post-2015 development agenda summit of heads of state and government may well attract global headlines this year, but much of the really significant work is being executed behind the scenes. As statisticians lock heads to come up with a workable indicator framework to measure and monitor the ambitious Agenda, Vikas Rawal, Associate Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, describes the make-up...

-Hindustan Times The picture of rural Indian life today that emerges from what is probably the world's largest study ever of household deprivation is sobering and sombre. It describes a massive hinterland still imprisoned in persisting endemic impoverishment, want, illiteracy and indeed hopelessness. It tells a story that every thinking and caring Indian must heed. Advocates of free markets, opposed to building a welfare state, have long argued that accelerated market-led economic...

-The Hindu Honna Kiranagi GP takes up work on planting saplings KALABURAGI (Karnataka): The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has come as a saviour for hundreds of agricultural labourers and small and marginal farmers in Honna Kiranagi village in Kalaburagi district. As farmers were not able to take up sowing for the kharif season owing to the failure of the south west monsoon this year, landless agricultural labourers and small...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: While the Delhi Development Authority notified the Land Pooling Policy a month ago after years of waiting, the project cannot proceed further unless Delhi government classifies the identified agricultural lands as ‘urbanisable’. The DDA had notified the policy in May, and was looking to start registration of lands in 89 villages for pooling by August. The matter then went to the Delhi government for consideration, and the DDA...