-The Indian Express Agriculture’s contribution to poverty reduction is five times more than that of metropolitan centres Speaking at the third BRICS Urbanisation Forum in Visakhapatnam on September 14, Deputy Chairman of the Niti Ayog, Arvind Panagariya, announced that “Without cities we can’t grow rapidly”. He added, “urbanisation plays an important role in poverty alleviation”. Both claims are exaggerated and somewhat misleading. A recent report prepared for the UN points out that, over...
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Massive Slump in MNREGA Work After Centre's Unofficial Instructions -Nitin Sethi
-TheWire.in The Centre’s off-record instructions through WhatsApp and a squeeze on funds made the rural work programme crash after a roaring first half of the year. This is second of a two-part series. Read part one here. The WhatsApp messages from the central rural development ministry to states had a chilling effect on the work given under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) after the roaring demand growth in the...
More »Hunger and hard facts -TK Rajalakshmi
-Frontline.in In the latest Global Hunger Index, India is bracketed in the category of countries where hunger levels are “serious”. But the policy responses on hunger and malnutrition in the country have been inadequate and faulty. In the second week of October, a few media reports in India highlighted significant data pertaining to global hunger. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) had released its Global Hunger Index (GHI), rating 118...
More »Work and welfare: MGNREGA 2.0 -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The flagship rural jobs programme has shown improved performance after initial neglect by the Modi government. New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government may spend close to Rs 60,000 crore on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the current fiscal, a record for the programme that was a baby of the previous United Progressive Alliance regime. The Union Budget had allocated Rs 38,500 crore towards MGNREGA for...
More »No one asks the farmer -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The opposition’s main contention is that the GM mustard hybrid incorporates three alien genes — barnase, barstar and bar — rendering it inherently unsafe for human and animal health. Fifty years ago, Union Minister for Food and Agriculture Chidambaram Subramaniam took the decision to import 18,000 tonnes of seeds of Lerma Rojo 64A and Sonora 64 wheat from Mexico. The seeds arrived just in time for their planting in...
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