-The Economic Times None of the standard explanations quite explain the rise in food prices India has seen: pronounced since 2006 and alarming after 2010. Drought and poor rains? The country has seen good aggregate rainfall in most of those years. Spike in global prices? Those were high in 2007-08, not now. Fragmented value chains that allow middlemen to grab large margins? The value chain has always been fragmented. Growth has slowed...
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Big monsoon picture masks agony on the small farm -Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-The Business Standard Rainfall shortage in Rajasthan to hit summer and winter crops Alwar (Rajasthan): Khajura Ram has an agonising fortnight ahead. If it does not rain in the next 15 days, he not only will have a poor summer bajra crop; his winter wheat or mustard will suffer as well because it will have to be planted late. "By the middle of August, the bajra crop should have been ready for harvesting...
More »Jowar, ragi cultivation to be tagged with MGNREGA
-The Business Standard K'taka government has announced this to enhance the jowar and ragi production in the state Dharwad: The Karnataka State Agriculture Commission has come forward with plans to tag the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) scheme with jowar and ragi farming to help the farmers overcome the problem of high labour component. Commission chairman Prakash Kammaradi said here on Monday that the state government had announced schemes to...
More »Time to redefine job surety? -Vibha Sharma
-The Tribune The UPA's flagship programme MGNREGS changed the employment scene for the rural poor. While 100-day job guarantee was a novel step, loopholes and poor implementation rendered it a liability. The Modi govt hopes to gradually reinvent the scheme, if not entirely scrap it. Midway through the Congress-led UPA's second tenure - believed to be largely the courtesy of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) -...
More »Killing MGNREGA slowly -Raghav Gaiha and Shylashri Shankar
-The Indian Express Focusing on private asset creation will only exacerbate its design and implementation failures. In his budget speech, Arun Jaitley shied away from taking a tough stand on the MGNREGA. In a seemingly non-controversial comment, he emphasised that "wage employment would be provided under MGNREGA through works that are more productive, asset creating and substantively linked to agriculture and allied activities". The subtext, however, is controversial. As argued below, far...
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