Productivity

Subsidies have played a major role in expanding the ownership and use of machines in agriculture in India. Many states have shifted from price subsidy to the direct benefit transfer of machine subsidies. This study uses administrative data on the sale of 4.9 lakh subsidised agricultural implements in Bihar and Odisha to evaluate the effectiveness of the DBT of agricultural subsidies in the two states.

The history of a community’s literature has usually been inseparable from the history of the language in which the literature is produced. In North East India, the problem arises in the case of those communities which have a rich and vibrant oral tradition, but no written texts. When writers from these communities adopt a literary language which is alien to their culture, they have to understand the historical conditions that enable them to use that language. The literary cultures in this region have witnessed a gradual shrinking of frontiers from the trans-regional vernaculars to a confined and limited regional space, where atomisation of cultures is more visible than development of cosmopolitan vernaculars.

How realistic is the objective of the Government of India to double the income of farmers by 2022? Is there a precedent? From estimates of change in income of agricultural households over the period 2003-13, this article suggests what needs to be done to achieve a doubling of real incomes. A focus on income from cultivation alone will be inadequate. Policy aimed at increasing net income from animal farming will be key.

The `Kerala model' of development has been facing a serious crisis due to low growth, high cost, low productivity, low investment and low employment in the state economy. This paper analyses the performance of major sectors of the state economy, such as agriculture, industry and the financial sector, during the past two decades and brings out the problems they confront. The paper highlights the lack of a development strategy in Kerala for growth and employment generation.

Well researched and penetrating though it is, the report on Russia prepared by McKinsey, the renowned consultants, is no more than a wish-list of foreign investors in Russia, actual and potential. Far from unlocking the forces of growth, the report's recommendations would lead to further underdevelopment and the enormous talents of the Russian people would be effectively bottled up for long years.