-The Hindu There are obviously several dimensions to India's recent agricultural performance which Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in his budget speech termed as "stellar". A week before the budget, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar had announced that foodgrain production is on course to touch a new record of 263 million tonnes, up from 255.36 million tonnes last year. The good performance is seen with regard to other crops too. Estimates of...
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Between 2000 and 2012, jobs grew by a mere 2% per year -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India As India heads towards a bruising general election, one of the key issues in the minds of both people and political parties is jobs. Big parties and their star campaigners can already be heard harping on the theme. The reason is that the jobs scenario has been decidedly grim for more than a decade. Between 2000 and 2012, jobs have increased at an abysmal rate of just 2.2%...
More »MGNREGA: A tale of wasted efforts
-Live Mint The scheme represents Rs.2.3 trillion spent on wasteful rural consumption This week marked the eighth anniversary of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's key rural intervention, launched in 200 districts initially in February 2006. To the extent that such populist schemes helped raise wages without raising productivity. They have contributed more to inflation than to rural wealth. Worse, such schemes have...
More »Secret of India’s rising farm output: It's all in the genes -Sandip Das
-The Financial Express India's grain output has risen substantially in recent years. India's grain output has risen substantially in recent years, taking the country to the league of the world's largest producers of rice, wheat and horticultural crops thanks to the use of diverse seed varieties, among other things. And productivity at Indian farms could increase further in coming years thanks to a centrally managed gene bank that would help multiply seed...
More »Food inflation may ease but supply-side woes pinch farmers, consumers -Anil Sasi
-The Indian Express Farmers are simply not among those benefiting from the higher prices of their produce. While a fall in headline inflation numbers will ensure some breathing space for embattled policy makers, the sharp surge in food inflation to a 41-month high of close to 20 per cent in November hides an even more disturbing fact - that despite the consistent spike in the year-on-year agri price levels at the...
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