Articles by Nilakantha Rath

There has been a major change in the composition and mix of the cattle population in India. The proportion of male cattle has declined sharply as farmers do not fi nd it worthwhile to maintain bullocks to plough holdings that are becoming smaller and smaller. The composition of the milch cattle population too is changing. The proportion of the indigenous breed is falling and that of the exotic/cross-bred is growing. There are differences between states in the pattern of change, but those who seek protection of the cow and a ban on cow slaughter seem to be unaware of what has been happening.

Attempts to measure poverty in India date back to pre- Independence, but it was only from the late 1950s onwards that a systematic effort has been made to define the poverty line and then estimate the population of the poor. A survey of the evolution of the poverty line with a focus on the recommendations of two important committees - the 1993 Lakdawala Committee and the 2010 Tendulkar Committee - which effected important changes in the measurement process.


Microfinance Regulation Bill: A Rejoinder Nilakantha Rath It is inappropriate to make trusts or registered societies or cooperative credit societies function as wholesalers in a regime of microfinance institutions. It is better to provide the self-help groups and their federations with statutory status under a liberal cooperative law. This would be the proper approach to extension of credit to such elements in the rural society.

A critique of the Vaidyanathan Committee report on revival of cooperative credit institutions, which has made wide-ranging recommendations for an overhaul of this sector.

On the basis of the scanty factual information that has been made available and a few assumptions, it is possible to attempt some elementary arithmetic about the cost per unit of water and per watt of power separately for the three components â?? the Peninsular, the Himalayan and the Hydroelectric - of the project to link the country's rivers. The results make one despair that instead of doing the first things that are crying out to be done first in regard to irrigation, people are being fed this pie-in-the-sky.