-The Hindustan Times New Delhi: Mohammed Abdul Sattar, 55, has been living in 'Delhi' for the past 20 years, but has never been to Connaught Place, which is hardly 8 km from his house. His 21-year-old daughter, Rukhsar Praveen, has been badgering him for the past few years to take him to shopping centre. "I have heard it's a big shopping centre with many tall buildings, but my father says it's...

-The Asian Age In India and around the world, poverty is predominantly rural. Development agencies often note that 75 per cent of the world's extremely poor people - those who earn less than $1.25 a day - live in rural areas. New figures from the 2014 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which measures overlapping dimensions of deprivation, show that rural poverty rates are even higher in some regions. In South Asia, the...

-The Business Standard The Punjab experience suggests rising agricultural productivity doesn't automatically translate into better jobs,but the story doesn't end there. A recent paper on the post-Green revolution economic transition of Punjab's peasantry, published by Punjab Agricultural University professors Sukhpal Singh and Shruti Bhogal, suggests that increasing productivity of rural workers is only one part of the agriculture to manufacturing transition. Punjab has the most mechanized agricultural sector in the country,...

-The Asian Age New Delhi: With traces of toxic metals found in fruits and vegetables grown along the banks of the Yamuna river, the city administration is likely to ban farming with contaminated water from the river. The national capital receives 95 per cent of its vegetables and fruits from other states. Of the remaining five per cent, half of these are grown using the Yamuna's polluted water. As the move...

-The Hindu Among various cash crops, turmeric has a potential market value all through the year since it is mainly used as a value added product. Erode is a turmeric cultivating hub in Tamil Nadu and almost all farmers in the region are growing this crop. But the main issue with this crop is that like paddy, it is labour intensive. A huge labour force is required for weeding, earthing, fertilizer application, harvesting...