-The Business Standard   Among the many initiatives and innovations being considered to improve returns to farming, the creation of producers’ companies deserves closer policy attention than has been the case so far. A farmers’ company, registered as a corporate entity with the registrar of companies, under the Companies Act, can help farm producers come together and derive economies of scope and scale. A group of farmers in Andhra Pradesh has reportedly...

The Centre is likely to ask states to devote 2% of the funds allocated to them under its flagship rural employment guarantee scheme for providing easy banking services to the rural poor. A funding crisis had hit the government's earlier effort to leverage the banking correspondent, or BC, model for the beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) after banks refused to bear the cost of...

The ministry of rural development has written to all the states warning them not to go slow or suspend works under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act at any point of time in the year. The communication reminding the provisions of the right to work Act comes in the wake of reports that some states are going slow in execution of works under the UPA's flagship social sector programme,...

Tribal affairs minister K.C. Deo feels the draft land acquisition bill does not adequately protect the Scheduled Tribes’ rights in case they have to be displaced to a non-scheduled area. Deo told The Telegraph he would write to rural development minister Jairam Ramesh about this. “Tribal people enjoy constitutional protection in the scheduled areas. If they are displaced for a certain project and resettled outside the scheduled area, the question is whether...

-The Telegraph   The upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections and its importance for Rahul Gandhi have prompted the Centre to try and speed up the land acquisition bill’s introduction and passage. The government is keen to introduce the bill in the current session of Parliament, which ends on September 8, though rural development minister Jairam Ramesh had earlier indicated that the consultation process would take some time. The bill will go to the standing...