Is India’s brand new Seed Bill capable of protecting the farmers' livelihoods? Or will it compromise their interest by allowing multinational seed companies to have a free run of the Indian seed market? The new Bill seeks to regulate the seed market and improve the quality of seeds as well as to harmonise and update the old policies in line with the current international practices for production, supply and for...
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Slow but steady success by Reetika Khera and Karuna Muthiah
Tamil Nadu's success in implementing the NREGA shows its commitment to social welfare, and the way ahead for other states. The share of women in the NREGA workforce has remained high from the beginning and is the highest in the country The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), enacted in 2005, has had a varied record so far. In many states, implementation has been lame (e.g. Bihar and Gujarat) or...
More »Govt to conduct BPL census next year by Ruhi Tewari
The decks seem to have been cleared for conducting the census to identify below poverty line (BPL) families with the ministry of rural development deciding to begin the survey next year. In a crucial move, it has allowed the states to suggest criteria for identification to overcome the limitations of the “one-size-fits-all” approach. After a meeting on Wednesday with the panel of experts set up by the ministry, it was decided to...
More »IPL? Let’s get real by Samar Halarnkar
So, Shashi Tharoor has gone. Lalit Modi may follow. Or not. Cricket’s great jamboree may be cleaned up. Or not. Does it matter so much? The Indian Premier League (IPL) brouhaha could not have come at a worse time. India was, finally, if reluctantly, starting to focus on long-festering-but-urgent issues that prevent this country from being a just, equitable democracy. As Tharoor and Modi self-destructed, the circus around them diverted all...
More »Lessons from BPL Censuses by VK Ramachandran, Y Usami and Biplab Sarkar
To perpetuate a system that assigns a household to a single BPL/APL category in circumstances in which poverty is multi-dimensional is not only bad economics, but unconscionable as well. The pilot surveys for the next Census of BPL (below-poverty-line) households are due to begin. Discussions are now on to finalise the methodology for the survey, and as the BPL Census is a matter of the subsistence and survival of hundreds...
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