-The New Indian Express As low prices continue to plague millions of farms all over the country, farmers and their leaders say Cash transfers are fine, but main issue is agricultural prices which make farming unremunerative. NEW DELHI: Ishwar Singh is a worried man. The furrows in his brow below his once white turban have deepened. He planted onions in his two-acre farm near Sonepat this winter and got what he believed...
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The problem with cherry-picking data -Arun Kumar
-The Hindu If it’s the government’s case that NSSO figures are suspect, what has it based policy decisions on? Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said last week, “we definitely have a data crisis,” and blamed academics for creating a “false narrative”. Yet, at the heart of the data crisis in India is the Central government, which has been holding back important data. Most recently, it did...
More »Saurashtra woes: Policy change on check dams leads to water deficit -Shagun Kapil
-Down to Earth In the 1990s, non-profits and farmers themselves built check dams; today, the government does it, without proper research or site selection Fifty-four-year old Dineshbhai Babariya has just harvested a 20 quintal cotton crop, his second harvest in the last one year in his four bigha (1.6 acre) farm in the Jasapar village of Gujarat’s Saurashtra region. August 2018 was the last time the village in Rajkot district received around 228...
More »Direct benefit transfer of subsidies crosses Rs.3-lakh-cr mark in 2018-19 -Surabhi
-The Hindu Business Line The 60% jump over last year is due to DBT in fertiliser where Rs.39,230 cr was transferred Mumbai: Direct benefit transfer of subsidies in Cash and kind crossed the Rs.3-lakh crore mark in 2018-19 to 123.8 crore beneficiaries through over 351-crore transactions. Official data reveals that DBT in both Cash and kind amounted to Rs.3,06,260 crore last fiscal, a 60 per cent jump from Rs.1,90,870.9 crore in 2017-18. A significant...
More »Rural Bihar prefer healthcare, infrastructure over Cash transfer: World Bank -Asit Ranjan Mishra
-Livemint.com * Only 13% surveyed chose Cash if it came at the expense of spending to improve public health and nutrition * The number grew to 35% if the Cash came at the expense of improving roads New Delhi: A timely survey conducted in rural Bihar by a World Bank economist and two professors from the Georgetown University to gauge the response of poor people on the raging debate over a minimum income...
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