-The Business Standard Yes, it will help combat the acute shortage of farm labour, but it goes against the Act’s core principles. Devinder Sharma  Food and agricultural policy analyst The crisis in agriculture has worsened and it is directly proportionate to the spread of MNREGA Isn’t it strange? The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), which was primarily designed as a radical and novel response to combat rural poverty, is actually hitting the very...

-PTI   To press for farmers' demands, including pension and interest free loan, Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sabha would launch a nation-wide stir on September 1. "On September 1 demonstrations of farmers would be organised across the country to press for six point charter of demands," ABKS general secretary Atul Kumar Anjan told reporters here today. The main demand includes pension to farmers at the age of 60 years by the Centre and the...

The Lokpal Bill is in danger of skidding off the rails. As it is introduced in Parliament, eminent activist Aruna Roy tells Shoma Chaudhury why we should not rush into it. THE LOKPAL BILL is now being debated in Parliament, almost 40 years after the idea was first mooted. Unfortunately, parented on one side by decades of wilful government inertia and, on the other, by the panicked hustle of ‘Team...

The farmers' agitation in Uttar Pradesh brings into focus the indiscriminate acquisition of land by the state for corporate-led development. ON May 19, three days before the formal observation of the second anniversary of the United Progressive Alliance government, Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi made a categorical announcement that in the monsoon session of Parliament scheduled to begin in July the ruling coalition would bring in legislation that...

The Sanjha Manch, a joint forum of people’s organisations, organised a candlelight march in protest against the proposed Gorakhpur Atomic Power Project here last evening. Members of the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, which is agitating against the acquisition of 1,313 acres of agriculture land for the proposed nuclear plant and activists of the Sanjha Manch began their candlelight march from Laal Batti Chowk and after passing through DSP Road, the procession reached...