The mass migration of farmers moving to urban India is becoming a worrisome trend, said planners at a seminar in the Indian Capital. “Many peasants want to leave agriculture, sell land and migrate to cities,” Arvind Mayaram, Additional Secretary and financial advisor to the Ministry of Rural Development told the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum on Monday. Seventy per cent of India’s 1.1 billion people currently live in villages,...

At least 29 of the 66 migrants crushed to death in east Delhi when a building collapsed on Monday night hailed from Bengal. The figure signposts the exodus of an abandoned generation and the inability of a state to retain its young or equip them for a better life elsewhere. The death of so many Bengalis has brought out in the open troubling issues that policymakers — both in the state...

The unemployment rate in India is estimated at 9.4 percent or 94 persons out of 1000 persons in the labour force for the fixed reference period of financial year 2009-10, according to employment-unemployment Survey by the Labour Bureau under the Labour and Employment Ministry. In absolute terms about 40 million persons are found unemployed based on the Survey results at overall level of the State/UT’s Surveyed. The unemployment rates are estimated at...

"Inclusiveness" may be the UPA's winning mantra, but a government Survey reveals that just 18% households in rural India have access to basis amenities -- drinking water, sanitation and electricity. Urban areas enjoy these facilities in 68% households. While the UPA regained power on its "aam aadmi" plank, the NSSO Survey highlights that a vast majority in rural India still lack basic civic amenities. Around 65% of rural households have no sanitation...

Himachal Pradesh has now brought wheat and barley crops under an insurance scheme to protect them from adverse climatic conditions, an official statement said Sunday. The National Agricultural Insurance Scheme will cover wheat and barley crops too across the state during the 2010-11 rabi season, said the statement. Earlier, maize, paddy, potato and ginger crops were covered. Likewise, the government last year initially launched an apple crop insurance scheme in Shimla and...