-The Telegraph The controversial poverty data from the Planning Commission has a message for Mamata Banerjee: the Marxists have brought down the number of destitute in Bengal but much more needs to be done. Latest data suggest that the number of poor has dipped by 7.5 percentage points in Bengal between 2004-05 and 2009-10, which covers the last five years of Left rule in the state. Poverty in urban areas in Bengal came...
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'Rural jobs scheme should have off period during agriculture season'
-IANS States should be allowed to declare an off period for the rural jobs scheme MGNREGA during peak agricultural season, says Sumitra Mahajan, chief of a parliamentary panel on rural development. She also believes extending the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to urban areas - as suggested by the Economic Survey last week - is not practicable unless the scheme is made to include semi-skilled work apart from manual...
More »Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission interviewed by Pallavi Polanki
The Planning Commission had released a report, yesterday indicating reduced poverty line to Rs 28.65 per capita daily consumption in cities and Rs 22.42 in rural areas, scaling down India’s poverty ratio from 37.2 percent to 29.8 percent in 2009-10. Firstpost did an interview with Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission. Here are excerpts from the interview: When we say there is a 7.3 percentage points (from 37.2 percent in 2004-05 to 29.8...
More »Building on Aadhaar
-The Business Standard In Budget, reformers win, NAC loses The consensus opinion that has developed about the 2012-13 Budget presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday is that it was unambitious, especially in terms of reworking government spending. It delivered little in terms of a vision for reform, the argument goes, constrained as it was by the spending-hungry allies in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the entitlement-hooked Congress leadership. A...
More »No green signal yet for the Yuva Kisan by MS Swaminathan
In this year's budget, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has essentially tried to consolidate the gains from the initiatives he had launched during the previous two budgets. Thus, in agriculture there is no new initiative except increasing the target for agricultural credit to Rs.5,75,000 crore during 2012-13. This represents an increase of over Rs.1,00,000 crore from last year. The interest rate of four per cent recommended by the National Commission...
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