-Down to Earth Farmers across the globe are quitting their business, while the rural youth population is increasing. Who will grow our food? In 2019, the world started talking about a structural crisis impacting the planet’s most critical job —food production. The world’s food demand is rising but the number of people quitting, or not joining, farming is consistently growing. This raises an existential question: who will produce the food? In 2016, the...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Most unmet demand in MGNREGA work has been found in Uttar Pradesh (27%), Madhya Pradesh (22%) and Bihar (20%), finds People's Action for Employment Guarantee
-Press Note by People's Action for Employment Guarantee dated September 10th, 2020 MGNREGA during the pandemic and beyond: Implementation highlights, concerns and questions and demands for parliamentarians We are confronting an unprecedented crisis in the history of modern India. On the one hand, the increasing number of COVID cases point to a dubious distinction for India on the world stage. On the other hand, the unplanned lockdown has resulted in a massive...
More »Growth in agriculture is not remunerative to Indian farmers -Richard Mahapatra
-Down to Earth Exceptional growth in agriculture and acreage in kharif season precipitate a crisis like never before for farmers In recent times, agriculture made headlines for all the wrong reasons: Farmers quitting cultivation; the sector turning into a perennial loss-making enterprise; and the country’s official policy to downsize the dependence on agriculture to reduce overall economic hardship among the poorest of the population. Agriculture’s fast-declining economic importance reached such an extent...
More »To resolve the Agrarian crisis, there is need for more public investment in agriculture, remunerative prices, and land reforms, among other things, say experts and activists during the Janata Parliament
-Press release by Jan Sarokar, dated 19th August, 2020 The agriculture session of the Janta Parliament was held earlier today. Please click here to acccess the press release related to the online session on agriculture that was held on 19th August, 2020. Please click here to watch the recorded session. In the session on agriculture, the speakers included Hannah Mollah from the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), Prof R Ramakumar from the...
More »Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »