-The Huffington Post Going by the number of farmers, Indian agriculture is the nation's largest private enterprise. And also the only one lacking free markets. So it is hardly surprising that half of India's population, since it depends on agriculture, contributes only 15% of the country's income. The shocking waste of entrepreneurial energy, time and resources of 263 million farmers and laborers has kept rural families in poverty, accelerated urban MIgration...

-The New Indian Express   BALANGIR: The ongoing socio-economic survey to prepare the beneficiary list for the National Food Security Act (NFSA) is scheduled to be completed next month. The process, though, is going to leave out lakhs of migrants from Western Odisha districts, Balangir in particular, who will not be able to enrol themselves. This is because the seasonal MIgration cycle, which begins from September to June will deny the migrants a...

-The Hindu Business Line Though MIgration of labour from the east has helped revive the plantations in southern India, questions remain on the long-term implications, Vishwanath Kulkarni reports As the harvest season starts in Coorg, Karnataka, coffee planter MC Kariappa has a lot of issues to contend with - productivity, weather and, the biggest worry of all in recent times, paucity of labourers. So when a dozen labourers from Assam landed at...

-The Hindu With a plethora of government departments and international organisations putting out so much statistical data in the public space, often contradicting one another, it is the government's duty to clear the air with up-to-date and coherent statistical data linking social and economic indicators Purchasing Power Parity or PPP has validated a long held surmise that the poorer countries are not as badly off as they are made out to be...

-The Hindu ‘When the mother is under-nourished, children are 1.8 times more likely to be severely malnourished' The level of malnourishment is high among children whose parents migrate in search of livelihood. Inherent malnourishment in mothers, lack of food and nutrition security, feeding and dietary practices and illnesses are some of the reasons identified for high levels of malnourishment. A study ‘Understanding hunger and malnutrition among high migrant communities' conducted in south Rajasthan...