When I met organic farmer John Fennessy, who has been cultivating his farm at Sulekunte, Bangalore, for the past three years, I felt I was learning a valuable lesson in life. Having sold some of the first produce from his four-acre farm ‘Hamsa' at the Flea Market recently held at Jaaga, a proud John shared some very insightful thoughts about life as an organic farmer .“I believe we must, as responsible...
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IPS officers failing to submit IPRs to be denied promotion
-PTI Toughening its stand on IPS officers who fail to submit their immovable property returns (IPRs) by January 31, next year, government has decided to deny promotion to them. The decision to deny vigilance clearance to those IPS officers who do not submit their IPRs has been taken by the home ministry after it was found that the property returns of 713 officers for the year 2010 (as on 1.1.2011) had not...
More »Jairam Ramesh's controversial Land Bill draws flak by AM Jigeesh
-India Today Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh's pet land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement Bill, 2011 has run into major roadblocks in the parliamentary standing committee. Various stakeholders, including farmers' organisations, NGOs and legal experts contend that in its present form, the Bill is an empty shell that exempts 90 per cent major development projects - highways, nuclear plants, mines, SEZs et al-in the name of which, land is being acquired across...
More »FDI if retailers procure 30% stuff from small industry by Surajeet Das Gupta & Nayanima Basu
Indian suppliers must be units with investment up to Rs 1.25 cr, says draft before cabinet. Multinational retailers such as Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour looking to open stores in the country may have to source almost a third of their merchandise from small Indian manufacturers as the government tries to make the opening of multi-brand retail to foreign players more politically palatable. The draft cabinet note for permitting 51 per cent foreign...
More »Cap & trade, Nrega style by Subhomoy Bhattacharjee
Good sections of rural India don’t want NREGA any more, showing the government spending pattern on the scheme. Since a large percentage of the village labourers have moved to the cities, it makes far better sense to develop an unemployment dole for them. The subtext is an accounting arrangement that ensures that like NREGA, the government can keep on rolling out similar entitlement programmes like the proposed Food Security Act, but...
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