Malawi'’s agricultural sector is critical to its economy, employing around 77% of the population and accounting for 23% of gross domestic product (GDP). The majority of workers in agriculture are smallholder farmers, many of whom cultivate less than one hectare of land. Despite its importance, the sector faces significant challenges, …
Sure, the rains are picking up, but droughts will strike again. How the govt can boost incomes of farm help to enable them to face a drought better — in the short, medium and long term. John Samuel Raja D reports. The rains are picking up, but still the latest …
Social audit of PDS throws up complaints from consumers The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has been extended to agricultural activities in the lands of small and marginal farmers, and farmers belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Castes as per a G.O. issued by the State …
Experts say the number of agricultural migrants coming to Punjab is not declining. The migrant workers themselves laugh off any claims of a slowdown in migration. Then why do Punjab’s farmers seem to be experiencing a labour supply squeeze? A large part of the answer seems to lie in Punjab’s …
Supply of migrant workers is drying up because of NREGS, say babus, industrialists and farmers. But workers themselves say this is not the case Patiala/Sangrur: Everyone agrees that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is causing a shortage of agricultural labour. Everyone, except the workers themselves. For …
Punjab’s agricultural sector grew at 1.6 per cent during the 11th Plan against the national average of 3.41 per cent. The growth is tardy owing to near saturation in productivity. The rural debts in Punjab are estimated to be Rs 35,000 crore. The number of indebted rural households in Punjab …
KOLKATA, 4 JUNE: The state Cabinet will approve a proposal to pay Rs 1000 per month to the unwilling farmers and agricultural labourers of Singur at a meeting tomorrow. The state commerce and industry department has moved the proposal to the Cabinet for clearance to pay a monthly sum to …
India is home to one-third of the world’s malnourished children. This figure that remains stubbornly high, despite the country having the second-fastest growing economy in the world, with agriculture accounting for a significant part of that growth. Agriculture continues to be the primary source of livelihood for the majority of …
A Bill further to amend the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005. This Act may be called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (Amendment) Act, 2011.
Rural areas have shown a faster pace of decline as poverty levels dipped by over seven percentage points in the past five years in the country. As per Planning Commission estimates released on Monday, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttarakhand are among the top performers, …
In an interaction with BW’s Rajeev Dubey, Professor S. Mahendra Dev argues why our inclusive growth is far from ‘inclusive’ Both UPA I and UPA II have had identical social objectives: enormously expensive subsidy-laden programmes that began with job guarantee through MGNREGA and have since expanded to free education, food …
The time has come to supplement the employment guarantee scheme with a food security strategy. And if we don’t do it now, we probably will not do so for a long time. As the economist Gunnar Myrdal argued, a lot of “scientific” economic and social reasoning is thinly disguised value …
The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre if it was willing to consider opening its purse strings to pay higher wages to agricultural labourers employed under its flagship job guarantee scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). The thought got provoked after the Karnataka High Court on …
Farmers who had given land for a factory of the West Bengal Pharmaceutical and Phytochemical Development Corporation nearly two decades ago demanded that the utilised plot be given to them for growing crops. Today, around 200 people gathered under the banner of the Congress’ farmers’ wing and demanded that a …
New Delhi: Farmer suicides and the agrarian crisis have been the reason for many disruptions in Parliament, but when the time comes to discuss the issue, hardly anyone bothers to attend, as happened in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday when not even 60 MPs were present. In fact, there were …
In the first high-level red-flag against the UPA government’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that while assets created under the NREGA “may or may not have productive use”, the programme was “adversely” impacting the agriculture sector …
May Be A Front To Acquire Tribal Land: Cong MLA Raipur: Six months ago, a TOI report exposed how Chhattisgarh home minister Nankiram Kanwar’s son, Sandeep Kanwar, acted as a front and bought tribal land illegally for a power company — benami deals that were struck down by the district …
But Research by JNU profs shows inequality has increased in both rural & urban areas Poverty in India has fallen at twice the rate since 2004-05 as compared with the previous decade, says a study by two professors of Delhi’s Jawarharlal Nehru University. The average annual decline in poverty rose …
Decision on rabi MSP soon: The Cabinet is expected to take a decision on the MSP of rabi crops, including wheat, soon. Sharad Pawar said his ministry had already forwarded its recommendations on the basis of suggestions given by the CACP. “It (decision on MSP) is expected at the earliest,” …
Sharad Pawar had mooted the idea last week. Jairam RameshIn a season of inter-ministerial rifts, another one has surfaced. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh is opposed to using funds under the government’s flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) to provide cheap agricultural labour to farmers. The idea was mooted …
Bhopal : On one hand MP Audit and Financial Management Software has been evolved for bringing about transparency in Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to ensure timely payment to labourers and on the other hand arrangements have been made for making payments to labourers within a radius of 5 …
