Growth in rural wages not only indicates economic prosperity of the masses, it is also considered important so as to generate effective demand for goods and services, which is produced by various sectors of the economy. When money becomes available in the hands of rural workers due to government spending on programmes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), it generates demand for commodities. The production of commodities...

-Down to Earth Farmers living in tribal areas in Jharkhand alleged that industrialists and the government are conspiring to ruin diverse traditional seeds and crops Farmers from Jharkhand’s Singhbhum district, a tribal area, alleged that the government and industrialists are trying to destroy their traditional knowledge of agriculture and looting cultivable land. This happened on the last day of a conference held on ‘Traditional agriculture: challenges and possibilities’ at Chaibasa this month. These...

-Frontline.in The political economy of the Modi regime was characterised by a redistribution of income in favour of a few and a worsened performance in job creation, welfare and alleviating deprivation. AT the end of its five-year term, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s claim that the Indian economy has experienced rapid growth during its tenure sounds shallow. The gross domestic product (GDP) numbers, many observers argue, are wrong and possibly fabricated....

-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...

-The Indian Express Economic data raises questions about missed opportunities and expending of political capital by NDA government. As India’s political parties switch to poll mode, economic data released in the past few days at the end of the NDA government’s term paints a far from rosy picture. Industrial growth in January slowed down to 1.7 per cent compared to the 2.6 per cent growth in factory output in December last...