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 prejudices and it is, in important matters, more honest and in fact necessary to explicate your values. Having said that, the debate on food security is taking strange turns, both from critics and proponents.

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 September 23, 2011 ruled that under the Central scheme, the agricultural workers should be entitled to minimum wages fixed by the State Government, in this case being `119 per day in Karnataka. This was not acceptable to the Centre which had capped the daily wages at `100.

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 manufacturing unit be set up in the entire area within a month or the land returned to them.

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 probably just 50 of them.

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 by “drawing out agriculture labourers from agricultural operations”.

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 collector. It turns out that the home minister’s son may not be the only “front”.

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.

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,” he said. The government might increase wheat MSP from Rs 1,170 this year to Rs 1,350 per quintal for 2012-13.

Nod likely to sugar exports

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.

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 kilometres.