-The Telegraph The government has not institutionalized SAUs which are at times intimidated when it comes to accessing data on various programmes The auditing agility of government programmes seems to have gained strength. After the recent floods in Assam, the state planned to carry out a social audit of relief measures to look into corruption and bribery. This is the first time that any government is trying to reinforce a social audit...

-The Indian Express A collective of NREGA women activists discovers its political voice. As Jean Dreze recently observed, one of the key ideas behind NREGA was that it would serve as a platform for increasing the overall political capacities of workers. It was hoped that people would organise themselves to collectively demand work and, in the process, learn about other legal and constitutional provisions. While learning about the latter has been patchy,...

-Down to Earth Creation of unregulated private points of sale will only ensure that the produce continues to be sold as before — at below MSP and without any government support More than 86 per cent farmers in India own or cultivate on less than two acres of land and have little surplus to sell. They are the victims of middlemen (arthiya) at the mandis (local exchange markets) and are forced, by...

-Society for Social and Economic Research The economic reforms which were started in 1991 shifted the focus of fertilizer policies away from playing a leading role in building the fertilizer industry and ensuring the availability of fertilizers at affordable prices to farmers. Under the neo-liberal policy framework, reducing the fiscal burden of fertilizer subsidies and the foreign exchange burden of fertilizer-related imports became the overriding concerns of the state.  Interestingly, the post-liberalisation...

-TheWire.in Since independence, floods in Bihar have affected 2.24 million hectares of agricultural land in all, and precipitated losses worth Rs 768.38 crore between 1953 and 2017. Patna: Every year, floods wreak havoc in Bihar, causing extensive losses and deaths. This year, 7.54 lakh hectares of agricultural land has been destroyed. In 2018, the same figure was only 0.34 lakh hectares, and even last year was 2.61 lakh hectares. In fact, since...