India's growth story in a crisis-hit world has been globally applauded. Still, the prime minister did well not to use his Independence Day address as a mere occasion for back-patting. This isn't yet "new India" where growth's gains percolate to every citizen. Not only must structural nuts and bolts be fixed before we get there, the economic blueprint itself needs a sharper reformist orientation. To its credit, the UPA has...

Faced with protests by farmers demanding higher compensation for land acquired for a township along the Taj Expressway, the Mayawati government on Tuesday decided to hike the price offered to them by 20 per cent at Rs 570 per square metre. A team of top state officials led by state cabinet secretary Sashankh Sekhar Singh and some senior ministers of the Mayawati government held parleys with farmer leaderRam Babu Kateria...

The 2010 Seeds Bill that has been introduced in Parliament does address some of the major concerns in the aborted 2004 version, but strangely a number of important correctives – on regulation, consistency and punishment – that had been incorporated in the 2008 version (which lapsed in 2009) have now been modified or dropped altogether. What forces are pushing the government to act against the interests of India’s farmers? The third...

Concerned over large population still suffering from poverty and hunger, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday said more efforts were required to achieve higher productivity and growth in the farm sector that would ensure food security to the people of this country. "I am happy that the growth rate of our agriculture has increased substantially in the last few years. But we are still far from achieving our goal. We...

It is estimated that food grain worth Rs 60,000 crore have been left to rot. Who is responsible? This figure is highly exaggerated. According to a study by the agriculture ministry, only 0.004 percent of stored food grain are rotten. There were 11,708 tonnes of damaged and non-issuable food grain in Food Corporation of India (FCI) depots. However, the whole lot hasn’t become spoilt. This quantity has become non-issuable to...