More than five years have passed since the world’s largest employment programme was launched in India. The scale of employment generated was not the only reason that this is a path breaking legislation. The MGNREGA is the first national law to establish rights in the development sector. It is demand based, and not constrained by arbitrary and restrictive selections like the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list. Any person living in a...

The state of environment report released by UP environment directorate says more and more of prime agricultural land is getting diverted to non-agricultural uses in the state. "Land is under severe pressure and has been subjected to many kinds of degradation", says the report Strangely, the number of very small land holdings has gone up considerably. The report highlights need for integrated land and water management including drainage for preventing further...

Amid no clear consensus emerging on the proposed Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, the government is likely to move an “open-ended” draft law in Parliament’s Monsoon Session, earmarking 40 to 45 per cent of the net sown area as “reserved agricultural zone” in which there can be no change in Land use for at least 10 years. In a move to ensure that agricultural produce is not affected by toxic contamination, the...

Five years after launching the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the UPA government is now shifting the focus from mere employment generation to creation of durable assets. With this focus, the Union Ministry of Rural Development has come out with the “MGNREGA works field manual”, which lays down “do’s and don’ts” for the states. The manual has been prepared by a team of experts headed by GN Sharma, who is consultant...

A Tamil economist, the late S. Guhan, used to say that Delhi was a capital in search of a country. I was reminded of that remark during the fortnight of May 29 to June 11, 2011. In that fortnight, if one watched the ‘national’ channels or read the ‘national’ newspapers, one would think all of India was involved in one way or the other with the ideas and practices of...