The budget is more concerned about the consumer than the grower A LOOMING food crisis in the world and high food inflation rates at home made Pranab Mukherjee’s proposals to boost agriculture in his 2011 budget more keenly watched than usual. These are factors that clearly weighed with the finance minister who repeatedly said that his principal concern this year has been the continuing high food prices. The squeeze on the...

Should the Central government run schools, crèches, pre-schools, dispensaries, employment schemes, the buying and selling of food grains, and build houses, not to speak of selling milk as it does in Delhi? Though the states seem to have taken it as their fate to have schemes on state subjects like education, agriculture and so on tailored for them by the Centre, as if in distrust of the states’ capability to think...

Thousands of workers from the state employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) will protest outside Parliament on March 30. The members,of the NREGA worker union from Punjab, allege widespread corruption in the scheme and poor working conditions. “NREGA was implemented from April 1, 2008. As per rules, job cards should have been made by that time, but even now many workers are running from pillar to...

The World Bank and the United Nations have hailed it as one of the best health insurance schemes around the globe. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's Budget called this UPA flagship, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), an 'effective instrument' for providing basic health cover to the poor. Yet, UPA-ruled states have virtually disowned the scheme - just 11% of the scheme's Rs 2.31 crore active beneficiaries are in UPA-run territories, an...

Small farmers granted waiver by 2008 central scheme win a roller-coaster legal battle In A significant ruling, the Gujarat High Court has granted loan waiver and relief of around Rs 22 crore to 312 farmers who got these loans from an urban co-operative bank for direct agricultural and allied activities under a central scheme. The court also held that no new condition can be added by the HC to a scheme...