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Farmers

  • Farmers complain against cement factories

    Farmers belonging to several villages complained to the district collector against the managements of cement factories being set up on their lands at the praja darbar held in the Collectorate on Monday. In a memorandum submitted to the collector, Mr Eddula Chennaiah, a farmer from Madhavaravam village of Pyapili mandal alleged that cement companies were forcibly occupying their land in the village.

  • Co-management of electricity and groundwater: An assessment of Gujarat's Jyotigram Scheme

    In September 2003, the government of Gujarat introduced the Jyotirgram Yojana to improve rural power supply. Two major changes have since taken place: (a) villages get 24 hour three-phase power supply for domestic use, in schools, hospitals, village industries, all subject to metered tariff; and (b) tubewell owners get eight hours/day of power but of full voltage and on a pre-announced schedule. It has, however, offered a mixed bag to medium and large farmers and hit marginal farmers and the landless. This article offers an assessment of the impact of Jyotirgram, and argues that with some refinements it presents a model that other states can follow with profit. Feb 16-22, 2008

  • Farm follies revisited

    A row about milk quotas only confirms the idiocy of Europe's common agricultural policy AT LAST, say some European Union leaders, it is time for tough talk about the future of farming. Even the subsidy-mad French agree: a mid-term review of the common agricultural policy (CAP) is to begin during their stint in the EU's rotating presidency, later this year. It all sounds encouraging. Except for this: even as governments boast of tackling difficult reforms soon, France, Germany and others are trying to thwart an easy reform now that would let EU dairy farmers take advantage of soaring world prices. The row centres on the EU's milk quotas, which cap production in each country, with swingeing fines for producing too much. It offers a revealing, and depressing, case study. There may never be a less painful time to ease (or scrap) milk quotas. They were designed in 1984, when low market prices and high subsidies were filling EU warehouses with surplus "butter mountains' and mounds of milk powder, at ever greater cost to the EU budget. Liberal-minded types wondered naively if cutting subsidies might be an idea. They were outvoted by the farm lobby, which chose to curb production via quotas so as to boost prices. As an instrument, it was blunt

  • Counting chickens

    the official response to the avian flu outbreak in West Bengal, now threatening to assume epidemic proportions, is a story of hubris underlined by pathetic bungling on the ground. Not long ago

  • Nagpur plots pro poor plan to help land grabbers

    Big, bigger Almost a third of the entire Nagpur district, that is 3,780 sq km, will be brought under the metropolitan region. Of this 1,520 sq km will be taken up under the first phase

  • A farmer heralds a silent revolution

    A silent revolution is on in this water-scarce belt of Jammu and Kashmir, heralded by a farmer who has shown what self-help and innovation can do. Most of the farmland was lying fallow in this belt of Samba district. Overcoming the constraint, the farming community diversified its produce base by growing high-value fruits such as kiwi, strawberry and raspberry.

  • Promoting hariyali

    Hariyali Kisan Bazaars are helping transform rural India by providing all manner of services to farmers. While the retail revolution in urban areas is going ahead at its own pace, the retailing in rural areas is also getting modernised in a unique manner to cater exclusively to the wide-ranging needs of customer-farmers. The trend setter in this case has been the "Hariyali Kisan Bazaar' chain launched by the DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd (DSCL) in 2002-03 with a well-conceived model of value-added retailing.

  • One killed, 30 hurt in clash in Chandpur

    A farmer was killed and 30 others including a woman were injured in a clash between musclemen of landlords and landless farmers following a feud over bringing water from a river for irrigating paddy field at Terashikandi shoal in Haimchar upazila yesterday, police said. The deceased is Giasuddin Howlader,40, they said. He died on way to hospital while seriously injured Nasima Begum,26, and 18 others are undergoing treatment at Chandpur Sadar Hospital.

  • The land grab

    With property prices skyrocketing across the country, there are suspicions that the government is covertly leveraging its sez policy to benefit realtors

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