-Livemint.com It is important to give preference to those approaches that help the poor the most for every rupee spent, no matter how they are labelled Sometimes in life, it is clear that the direct approach isn’t the best one. This is true in many areas, even when it comes to policymaking. Take, as an example, the area of extreme poverty. It seems logical, at first, that the most effective response should...

-Livemint.com In the last three years, wages of agricultural labourers have increased only by 0.5% per year while those of non-agricultural workers have declined by 0.25% per year, the worst so far in 30 years The agrarian economy continues to be plagued by falling output prices, declining incomes and increased variation in agricultural production pointing to a situation of uncertainty and vulnerability among most rural residents. This has created an unprecedented demand...

-PTI Seventy five per cent households across 13 states feel that the level of corruption has increased or remained the same during the last one year, while 27 per cent confessed to paying a bribe to avail public services in the last one year, according to a new survey. The 'India Corruption Study' conducted by the Centre For Media Studies covered more than 2,000 households from over 200 rural and urban clusters...

The present NDA government led by the BJP at the Centre came to power in 2014 on the planks of development and anti-corruption. However, contrary to PM Narendra Modi's slogan of 'Na Khaunga, Na Khaane Doonga' (meaning ‘would not take bribes, nor would let anyone accept bribe’), a new report by the Delhi-based Centre for Media Studies (CMS) shows that almost three-fourth of Indian households think that the level of...

-Livemint.com China’s example shows the benefits of the rural workforce shifting from the farm to the non-farm sector The government announced its ambitious dream of doubling farmers’ income by 2022-23 in 2015-16. Incomes would have to grow annually by 10.4% to double in seven years. The data on growth rates of farm income given by NITI Aayog in its policy paper on doubling farmers’ income shows that the real income of farmers has...