The panchayat needs data on residents living within its jurisdiction. Such data cannot be collected and aggregated from official registers that record data at the place of occurrence. Hence, there is need to record data at the place of usual residence that can be used by the panchayat for administrative purposes.
On the New “Land Politics”
When writers like Professor Borras refer to “land grab,” they have a series of assumptions in mind. But to begin with, irrespective of the definitions used and areas involved, the “land grab” that Professor Borras speaks of is largely limited to parts of Africa.
Requirements for a new statistical system for decentralized government – 1
Panchayats as geographical units for the aggregation, estimation, and publication of official statistics
Measuring Crop Yields
Crop yield or the quantity of crop output harvested (say in tonnes) per unit of area cultivated (say in hectares) is the most important measure of agricultural performance worldwide.
Drought and Deprivation in Bundelkhand
Bundelkhand, a hilly region spread across 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, is currently struggling with the effects of an acute drought.
Land Politics, Agrarian Movements and Scholar-Activism
This blog introduces some very interesting views on agrarian issues by Professor Saturnino M. (“Jun”) Borras. Professor Borras delivered the inaugural lecture on agrarian justice at the International Institute for Social
The Looming Crisis in Indian Agriculture
Indian agriculture is facing challenging times yet again. In a recent special edition on “Indian Agriculture Today” in the Economic and Political Weekly (20 February 2016), Abhijit Sen points to the slowdown in
The Significance of Cohort Studies in Social Science
The Life Project, a new book by Helen Pearson, describes the rich history of cohort studies in the United Kingdom.* These are longitudinal studies of individual lives starting from the time of birth and continuing over an extended period.
Agriculture in Budget 2016
The Union Budget of 2016 has widely been publicised as a “pro-farmer” Budget An analysis by R. Ramakumar in the current issue of Frontline critically assesses the claim that farmers’ incomes will be doubled by 2022. Ramakumar shows that th
Cotton cultivation: Bt varieties and hybrids
“The main reason why India has been unable to harness the full potential of Bt cotton technology is that it got caught in the hybrid trap,” writes K. R. Kranthi, eminent entomologist and Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR)

