Articles by Monojit Chatterji

Monojit Chatterji Within weeks of sweeping to power for an unprecedented third term, Margaret Thatcher has proposed far-reaching 'reform' of Britain's system of local government finance. The proposed replacement of property tax by a poll-tax will sharply raise the local tax burden on the poor, a significant proportion of whom are Asians and Afro-Caribbeans.

There are many other results presented which we do not consider to be of central importance from the point of view of mechanisation. Thus, all through, she has gone along with two comparisons, namely tractors with bullocks and tubewells with canals. It does not appear to us that the second comparison is really concerned with the problem of mechanisation, Tubewell and canal irrigation are two different modes of water use in agriculture. There are indeed a whole lot of problems of choice and com- binations of different means of using surface and ground water. Tubewell irrigation itself offers a whole lot of choices in the matters of depth, motive power, material (e g, steel, plastic, even bamboo and coir). To consider mechanisation of irrigation one has to go into all these which Bina Agarwal does not do. Irrigation is a field on which many others (e g, B D Dhawan) have done extensive and comprehensive researches. Bina Agarwal's contribution in this respect is not very remarkable.