-Livemint.com Farmers need structural reforms, crop diversification and greater public investment rather than subsidies and price support Indian agriculture has been relatively untouched by the structural reforms that lifted incomes in other parts of the economy. Low farm productivity meant that governments tried to improve the lot of farmers through price policy. The problem is that engineering a shift in the terms of trade through higher support prices usually leads to generalized...
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Pranab Bardhan, professor of graduate school in the department of economics at the University of California (Berkeley), interviewed by Devadeep Purohit (The Telegraph)
-The Telegraph The Left in Bengal had often criticised him whenever he red-flagged excessive local tyranny, and spoke about the industrial decline in Bengal. The incumbent ruling party may make tall claims about changes in Bengal since the Trinamul government came to power but he has been candid enough to suggest that he hasn't seen much change either in industrial expansion or in investment in infrastructure. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has...
More »Will 'climate smart agriculture' serve the public interest - or the drive for growing profits for private corporations? -Peter Newell, Jennifer Clapp & Zoe W Brent
-TheEcologist.org 'Climate smart agriculture' has become the buzz phrase at high level international policy discussions. But now there is a struggle over its definition. Is it the latest manifestation for corporate social responsibility or the title of a manifesto for real, grassroots led, change, ask PETER NEWELL, JENNIFER CLAPP and ZOE BRENT The race is on to deliver models of agricultural development that are viable and sustainable in a world of...
More »Potato portents -Ajay Vir Jakhar
-The Indian Express The crisis in the crop’s prices in two of the four years of the Modi government illustrate that farmers no longer matter to it. Farmers are habitually great raconteurs. My grandfather would often narrate an episode, when he encountered a farmer sitting by a heap of potatoes in the middle of the night. On investigating what compelled the farmer to guard potatoes when there were no buyers, he was...
More »Aadhaar: When the Poor Get Left Out -Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri
- The Hindu Centre for Politics and public policy Aadhaar's principal goals were to end fraud and reach welfare to the poorest. But in practice it has achieved neither. The claimed elimination of bogus cards has been found to be exaggerated. On the other hand, the insistence on the Aadhaar card has led to the brutal exclusion from welfare of the very poor and the homeless — for reasons such as...
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