-DNA From May 20, 2014 to May 24, 2015 has seen as many as 1,306 farmers suicides, a 40% jump from last year. In the middle of the media blitzkrieg over the completion of a year in office of the Narendra Modi government comes the information that it is anything but 'achche din' in the farmer suicide country of Vidarbha. From May 20, 2014 to May 24, 2015 has seen as many...
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Modi government cuts social sector allocations to states by half to promote cooperative federalism
-The Economic Times BENGALURU: As the central government devolves more fiscal freedom to the states, they seem to be cutting allocations to social sectors, especially agriculture and allied areas in response, according to the initial findings of a study. The Narendra Modi administration wants to empower states further as part of a push toward cooperative federalism. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's February budget cut allocations to the states by more than half in...
More »The Lie Of The Land -Pavithra S Rangan
-Outlook In MP’s Bundelkhand region, a sarpanch-babu nexus means NREGA benefits dry up for the poor The Paper Trail How social sector cuts are playing out in one of India’s poorest parts For the first time ever, in 2014, Rs 1,000 cr, of a sanctioned Rs 4,000 cr budget for NREGA, not given to MP In 2015, only a small part of the budget released for two months. NREGA top officials say funds always...
More »Irrigation scheme's targets unlikely to be met -Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-Business Standard Modi's flagship programme faces an uphill task of total irrigation One of the major pre-poll promises of the Narendra Modi government has been his idea of 'per drop more crop', which, in other words, means an extensive network of canals and irrigation facilities for farming. Pradhan Mantri Sinchaee Yojana, initially under the ministry of water resources, got transferred to the department of agriculture and its nomenclature was changed to the Pradhan...
More »Environment: Ecological suicide -Ashish Kothari
-The Hindu The growth-at-all-cost mantra has left a vast majority of people impoverished. If the first year of the BJP government is any indication, its five-year stint may turn out to be the worst period for India’s environment and ecosystem-dependent people since the 1980s. This is saying a lot, given that none of the previous governments has been particularly sensitive to issues of fresh air and water, productive soil, healthy forests and grasslands....
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