-The Deccan Herald The Congress-led UPA Government is all set to re-launch its flagship rural self-employment scheme as a national mission to reach out to all the rural Below Poverty Line (BPL) families and link them to sustainable livelihood opportunities. Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will launch the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) at Banswara in Rajasthan on Saturday. Rural Development Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh said that the NRLM –...
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The land debate by BG Verghese
Development has a multiplier effect in terms of employm-ent, secondary activity and revenue to state, while delay entails loss for everybody. Tolstoy’s famous question, “How much land does a man require?” was answered when the Count who had ruthlessly exploited his serfs was buried in a grave measuring 7x4x4 feet. And that, Tolstoy concluded, was all the land a man requires. Is corporate and infrastructural greed in India today destroying the small,...
More »Coal smuggling engulfs job scheme by NK Agarwal
Who cares for a paltry Rs 100 per day clean pay from the government. If you are dealing in coal, a little more black in your pockets couldn't hurt. Job schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in Ramgarh district are floundering as labourers prefer to ferry coal for illegal traders, fetching them at least four times more wages. "I have no interest in job schemes initiated...
More »Agrarian distress by Utsa Patnaik
The farmers' struggle against land acquisition only shows that from passive forms of protest they have turned to active forms of resistance. THE recent agitation by farmers in Uttar Pradesh against cropland acquisition for non-agricultural purposes is only the latest in a long series of protests by farmers and rural communities, which started a decade ago in different parts of the country and which gathered momentum over the past five...
More »For a sensitive law by V Venkatesan
The 117-year-old Land Acquisition Act cries out for reform, but there is resistance to introducing positive changes. The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to amend the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, has had a long period of gestation. The Union Ministry of Rural Development initiated the process of amendment way back in October 1998. But it took around 10 years for the government to bring the Bill before Parliament. The 1894...
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