-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government is giving a fresh push to its flagship rural employment scheme ahead of the general elections, providing additional funds to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. To begin with, the rural development ministry will pump in 200 crore each year, a senior official told ET, adding that these states have been chosen because half of their population is below poverty line and they have not...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Chhapra tragedy must ask us how we can improve public services, not scrap them altogether. In the aftermath of the ghastly tragedy in Chhapra, Bihar, where 22 children lost their lives after they consumed a government-provided school meal containing organophosphate pesticides, we must demand of the State a far greater commitment to administering large-scale welfare programmes that are meant to improve, not destroy the life of citizens....

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: Paddy farmers in eastern India are a bit worried over erratic rainfall this year. The spread of the rainfall has not been uniform across the region which has prompted states like West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha to prepare contingency plans if the trend continues for long. The states are looking at options such as short-duration crops and direct seeding as possible ways of growing paddy in...

-Outlook The country has achieved a record pulses production of 18.45 million tonnes (MT) in the 2012-13 crop year ended June, while foodgrain output fell by 1.5 per cent to 255.36 MT due to drought in some states last year. The Agriculture Ministry today released the fourth advance estimates of foodgrain production for 2012-13. Pulses output has been revised upward to record 18.45 MT in 2012-13 as compared with 18 MT in the...

-The Business Standard But many numbers point to contrary trends The latest numbers on poverty levels are dramatic; they show that the number of people below the poverty line (as defined by the late economist Suresh Tendulkar) has shrunk from 37 per cent of the population to 22 per cent, in the seven years to 2011-12. This is an unprecedented rate of fall in poverty levels; some 40 per cent of those...