Breakthroughs in the production and productivity of wheat and rice in the sixties and of cotton recently have been much appreciated, but similar advances in maize have gone largely unnoticed and unsung. Maize output has soared in the past 10 years from a mere 12 million tonnes in 2000-01 to over 21 million tonnes in 2010-11. This increase can largely be attributed to a surge in crop productivity rather than...

Retirement at 60 means a relaxed life for most people. Not so for 70-year-old P Mukundan, managing director of Servals Automation Pvt Ltd, though. He did retire from his busy business life at 60 but chose to become a social entrepreneur after that. He started a social enterprise that is 'for-profit' but that touches the lives of those who live in rural areas all over the world. In 2002, Mukundan started manufacturing...

It's that time of the year when Kishore Lal Singh's eyes almost involuntarily scan the skies. The monsoons are coming. In the months ahead, for this Bhil farmer growing cotton, maize and soya south of the Malwa plateau in Madhya Pradesh, life will again hang on a knife's edge. If it rains well, his two bighas (about four basketball courts) of cotton will yield 1,000 kg. If not, he will...

Cash transfers are now suggested by many as a silver bullet for addressing the problems that plague India’s anti-poverty programmes. This article argues instead for evidence-based policy and informed public debate to clarify the place, prospects and problems of cash transfers in India. By drawing on key empirical findings from academic and grey literature across the world an attempt is made to draw attention to three aspects of cash transfers...

If the problems are macro, think micro. That seems to have been the guiding principle for Lekha-Mendha, the Maharashtra village that last month became the first in India to win the right to grow, harvest and sell bamboo. Such rights are the key goal of a five-year-old central law which aims to give tribal communities control over some resources of the jungles they live in. “There is no point in looking out...