-The Telegraph The Mamata Banerjee government claims that its khadya sathi food scheme has eliminated hunger Calcutta: A study carried out by the Pratichi Institute and the Asiatic Society has found out that a significant proportion of tribal people in Bengal had faced “food scarcity of varying degrees” in the past one year. The finding drills holes into Mamata Banerjee government’s claims that its policy of cheap food grain supply, known as khadya...

-The Hindu Business Line The Centre and States must eschew the politically expedient option of loan waivers and look for long-term solutions The sweeping wave of loan waivers has generated serious debates across the country on their economics and likely outcomes. Till date 12 States have announced loan waiver amounting to more than Rs.2 lakh crore. Loan waiver cannot be a solution to address the agrarian crisis, instead the government must look for...

-The Economic Times Even though the scheme had been ranked as the world's largest public works programme by the World Bank, it is being systematically undermined with illegal restrictions on its budget allocation, severe payment delays and low wages. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has been a tried and tested measure to target rising unemployment and ease rural distress in the country. The Rural Employment programme, which guarantees 100...

-Scroll.in The former Planning Commission member explains why the country needs to tread carefully on this idea. On January 1, when Indian news agency ANI asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the government’s plans to reduce agrarian distress, he said loan waivers do not work as a very small segment of farmers take loans from banks. “A majority of them take loans from money lenders,” said Modi. “When governments make such announcements,...

-Livemint.com This Uttar Pradesh village offers a microcosm of the broader change in Indian villages since independence Palanpur is a relatively unknown small village in Moradabad district of Uttar Pradesh. However, it has a special place in development economics because of a research project that has stretched over seven decades. economists have conducted seven detailed surveys of Palanpur since the 1950s, a rare longitudinal database that shows how the village has changed...