-The Hindu The average rural Indian household is a marginal landowner, growing mainly cereals on a small patch of land and reliant on groundwater for irrigation, new official data show. Over 80 per cent of rural households have marginal landholdings of less than one hectare (10,000 square metres) and just seven per cent own more than two hectares, data on household land ownership from the National Sample Survey Office show. Tribal people are...
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Questions aplenty on Haryana panchayat poll law -Krishnadas Rajagopal
-The Hindu Bench offers limited and unidimensional explanations to petitioners’ queries The Supreme Court judgment upholding the new Haryana panchayat law, which limits the voter’s freedom to choose his own candidate in a participatory democracy, offers limited and unidimensional explanations to questions and issues raised by parties in court. The judgment by a Bench led by Justice J. Chelameswar does not explain why it considers the reasons for disqualification in Section 175 of...
More »Lancet study puts India as the worst performing among BRICS nations on health indicators -Aradhna Wal
-DNA Despite a certain amount of progress in the past decade or so, the report points out glaring gaps in healthcare infrastructure in the country -- "low resource allocation, low emphasis on primary health care, poor utilisation of human resources," as Professor K Srinath Reddy, one of the co-authors said. Yet another report on India's troubled health care system pointed out the country's poor performance across health indicators, despite economic advantages....
More »Nearly half of India’s districts drought-hit as crisis accelerates -Samar Halarnkar
-Hindustan Times India, the father of the nation famously said, lives in its villages, or, as many call it, Bharat. There is no doubt that a great shift is underway: As 600 million move out of rural areas over the next 35 years, India will need about 500 new cities. But unless Bharat offers a fraction of the hope that ushered in Narendra Modi’s era, the ongoing urban transformation of India...
More »Fixing rural distress: A challenge for both Nitish and Modi -Sayantan Bera
-Livemint.com As many as 23 out of 38 districts have received deficit rain ranging 20-60% of the normal; overall, the 2015 Jun-Sep monsoon recorded a 28% deficit Nitish Kumar, who will take oath as chief minister of Bihar for the third consecutive time, will face a daunting task as he tries to tackle rural distress in the state that has been hit by a drought. The issue had found little mention in the...
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