-NetworkIdeas.org On Wednesday August 8, the Delhi High Court decriminalized begging in the capital. In the course of its hearing it had raised the question how begging could be an offence in a country where the government was unable to provide food and jobs; its final verdict is in line with this thinking. Of course there was no central legislation, or legislation relating specifically to Delhi, that had criminalized begging earlier;...

A recent report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) enlightens one about the state of farmers' income and indebtedness in 2015-16. Entitled NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey 2016-17 – in short NAFIS 2016-17 – the report says that between 2012-13 and 2015-16 the average monthly income for agricultural households grew by around 39 percent. One may recall that the Key Indicators of Situation Assessment Survey...

-Down to Earth Although the average farm income per month saw a rise in the last four years, it is still not enough to help farmers cope with the current agrarian crisis A latest report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), a government agency, again, shows the vulnerability of Indian agriculture households.   The NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS) shows that average agriculture household income was...

-Livemint.com Rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha on how MGNREGS has evolved since 2006 to result in income, acreage, water tables, productivity and fodder availability Agrarian distress and rural distress are terms used interchangeably, but the rural economy today is very different from what it was many years ago, given the diversification of rural incomes and hence incorrect to think one means the other, says Amarjeet Sinha, secretary, ministry of rural development. In...

-Livemint.com The job of policy strategists is always to identify the binding constraints to growth and then try to figure out which policies will help ease them Economists of a certain vintage will remember the old development models in which rapid economic growth was held back by three key constraints. The first was the savings constraint. A poor country such as India could not save enough of its annual national income to sustain...