Rural & Agrarian Transformation

Answer : The aim of this scheme is to enhance livelihood security by providing 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in one year to rural households. It has a rights based approach as it recognizes the right to work. It is self selective and time bound programme as people get wages if work is not allotted in time. Moreover, it caters to the local needs and provides employment to the farmers in the lean season. According to ....

Answer : Five year plans is the model adopted by the planners of Indian economy. Initially the targets are set for various sectors and the allocations are made to various ministries for the fulfillment of these targets. Finally, the assessment is done and the shortcomings of the previous plan are addressed by the next plan. India adopted this model from Soviet Russia and planned to realize the socialistic pattern of development through these plans. This includes reduction ....

Answer : A revolution was started in decade of 1960s with the help of technological innovation in agriculture sector to make India self-dependent in food grains. It is now known as Green Revolution.

High yeilding crops were produced with the help of hybrid seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and ad-vanced means of irrigation. This revolution resulted in both positive and negative consequences for Indian farmers.

Positive consequences are as follows:

1. Better standards of life for farmers
2. Increase in per capita income
3. Change in mentality ....

Answer : Social structure is the fundamental concept of sociology. Nadel has established relationship between social structure and population through basic population and web of individual’s roles played in a society. Whereas Davis and Blake has related social structure theory with fertility rate.

While defining the relationship between social structure and fertility, Davis and Blake opined that in a social structure high fertility rate indicates low status of individual. The rate of high fertility in low social class ....

Answer : According to D.N. Dharagre peasant movements can be referred to all kinds of collective attempts by the peasantry class either to change the system which they felt exploitative or to seek redressal for particular grievances. India has a long history of peasant movement. The diversity of land systems and agrarian relation such as pattern of landownership, tendency use and control of land, agrarian class structure etc. have given different types of peasant movement from time ....

Answer : Indian Agricultural social structure was traditionally divided into those who have land and those do not. But over the year agrarian systems have witnessed many changes and the major fundamental changes occurred during the British period. The British rule which introduced the land tenure system to raise revenue gave birth to many agrarian class such as land owners, tenants, agricultural labourers. But Damiel Thorner has described these agricultural classes as proprietor, working peasants and labourers. ....

Answer : Traditionally rural elites in India defined in terms of specific status groups like castes, religion etc. Landlords and rich non-cultivating castes belonging to upper castes such as Brahmins, Thakur, Bania in north India, Kammas, Reddis in Andhra Pradesh, Kunbi, Marathas and Deshmukhs in Maharashtra, etc. were top elite class in rural India, who controlled political and economic affair of the rural region till the independence. The rural elite formation was totally based on caste structure.

But ....

Answer : Compared to other developing countries like China, Brazil, Sri Lanka etc the literacy and education level in India is very low. The situation is complicated further because of various disparities within the population. The various kinds of disparities are caste biased, class biased, gender biased, region and religion biased. Most often these disparities overlap each other.

Caste based disparities show a pitiable situation for most Dalits and Adivasi groups. SC literacy rates at 1991 were just ....

Answer : Rural India is not inert. It is seething with discontent of conflicts. The old stable social structure of the village community with its varied institutions had experienced a severe jolt during the British period and is undergoing a very rapid, almost hectic transformation after Independence.

The impact of elections based on universal franchise, of increasing competitive profit-oriented production by peasants and of the emergence of various new institutions and associations-political, economic, social and administrative-on various classes ....

Answer : New economic policy, i.e., reforms, focussed attention on the greater role for the private sector. However, it controls the notion of ‘license raj’ and removes unnecessary burden for securing licenses. To provide larger scope to the private sector, a number of changes in policy were introduced with regard to industrial licensing, export-import policy, technology upgradation, fiscal policy, foreign equity capital, removal of controls and restrictions, rationalizing and simplifying the system of fiscal and administrative regulation.

All ....

Answer : There has been socio-historical journey of the poverty alleviation programmes which instructs to remove poverty and indebtedness present among deprived people of India. However, we still need to reevaluate it and give more emphasis on practicality of the programmes rather than their theoretical aspects only.

The integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) is a major instrument of the government to alleviate poverty. Its objective is to enable selected families to cross the poverty live by taking up ....

Answer : Two types of policies affect rural life:

I. production-oriented activities targeting production and services, e.q., subsidized fertilisers, providing irrigation, credit, locating village industries, and so on; and ii) non-production oriented activities targeting living standards. The first type of activities are defined as rural development measures. Those activities may affect either the whole community or a particular section of the community.

Three distinct strategies for rural development may be identified.

I. Initially, in the 1950s, policy-makers ....

Answer : The large increase in agricultural production, especially in wheat, which took place in a short space of tense (1965-66 to 1970-71), as a result of application of high yielding varieties of seed, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural machinery, is described as Green Revolution.

The effect of the application of the new technology was that there was increase in production of food grains from 1965-66 to 1970-71. Of the foodgrains produced. the greatest impact of the green ....

Answer : Unrest among the Indian peasants is not new. It is historical. Bipan Chandra observes that peasant movements had been a part of national movement since 1920. With the emergence of agricultural capitalism, the growth of green revolution and the spread of education along with the development of agriculture, unrest among peasants has increased. The tribals of the country who are late comers to agriculture have also raised their head high to agitate against the government ....

Answer : After independence, India adopted a large number of poverty alleviation programmes under the Five Year Plan or outside it. In the first five year plan independence in food production was given priority. The famous 'Garibi Hatao'programme was adopted in Fourth Five Year Plan.

The Crash Scheme of Rural Employment (CSRE) was started in 1971. The Pilot Intensive Rural Employment Programme (PIREP) was started in 1972. Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP) was started in 1970-71. Integrated ....

Answer : After independence the Central Government of India adopted a large number of welfare programmes for the women. Recently, the year 2001 has been celebrated as the year of Empowerment of the women. All these programmes aim at elevating the social, economic and political status of the women. Some of the popular programmes related to economic empowerment of women are as follows:

The new Model Charkha Yojana (1987), Naurad Training Programme (1989), Mahila Samakhya Yojana (1992), ....

Answer : There exists several child welfare programmes in India aimed at the upliftment of 17.5 percent of the population (1991) who are below the age of six years. A large number of these children live in a kind of environment which retard the unfolding of their genius. Such environment involves poverty, poor sanitation, disease, inadequate access to primary health care, malnutrition etc.

The welfare programmes for children draw inspiration from the Constitution of India which emphasised ....

Answer : The "Green Revolution" chiefly refers to the breakthrough accompanied by a sudden jump in the yield per acre as a result of introducing high yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds and seedlings, increased application of the recommended chemical fertiliser in the areas with assured water supply, adoption of mechanised farming and use of pesticides. Prof. Swaminathan is considered as the father of Green Revolution in India.

In the mid 1960s the government introduced Intensive Agricultural District Programme ....

Answer : According to the Planning Commission of India, 'Community Development is an attempt to bring about a social and economic transformation of village life through the efforts of the people themselves'. In this way community development programmes indicate those projects for social and economic reconstruction in the villages, which are implemented with the co-operation of public themselves. A.R.Desai has described ‘Community development project is the method through which Five Years Plans seek to initiate a process ....