One of the big surprises in the 2011-2012 budget was that spending on the country’s landmark rural employment program remained flat, disappointing activists who see it as a way of redressing growing wealth disparities. The program has since 2006 guaranteed 100 days of work a year for unskilled laborers to build rural infrastructure like irrigation ditches and roads. The Congress party has made the program, known as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

Although rising food prices remain a critical concern, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is counting on better supply management, improved output of pulses and rice, better access to rural credit and strengthening of existing agricultural schemes to bolster India’s farm output. The rural economy employs about 60% of India’s work force, contributes about 17% of gross domestic product, and is expected to post 5.4% growth over last year, according to advanced estimates...

Increase in offtake under various public distribution schemes. Supply of wheat and rice will have to be doubled if the proposed National Food Security Act for targeted beneficiaries is implemented with the current delivery mechanism, in which leakages are too high, the Economic Survey for 2010-11 has said. “Once we give a legal guarantee to people about the food that they are to receive, if we try to deliver on this promise...

Is the chemical fertilizer-based food production system sustainable? As a result, what happens to the soil and the larger issue of food security? After a raging debate, the government finally decided to hike the chemical fertilizer subsidy, to catch up with spiralling fertilizer prices in the global market. Also, there is talk about bringing urea under the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) system and decontrolling its prices. Obviously, the fertilizer industry...

On the eve of the Union Budget on Sunday, thousands of farmers and hundreds of farm widows staged a strong protest at Pandharkawda in Yavatmal district by hanging effigies of union finance minister of finance Pranab Mukherjee and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar. The protesters wanted to draw attention of the government towards its 'anti-cotton farmer policies.' They demanded lifting of ban on cotton export, a bailout package for dying cotton...