The French sense of style extends to train travel and the TGV is an acronym for “train grande vitesse” – or high-speed train — which can travel at 357 mph while the passenger runs hit 200 mph. Top route: Lorraine – Champagne-Ardenne

 9 Japan Railways Group, Japan

  

Japan’s original 130-mph bullet train of 1964 has inspired imitators, but the country’s high-speed trains are still among the fastest and most technologically advanced and are reliable, safe and fast. Passengers aren’t treated to the same 361-mph top speed achieved in testing, but 186 mph still isn’t bad. Top route: Tokyo – Shin-Osaka

 8 Eurostar, England

  

There are Eurostar lines throughout the continent and they’re some of the best ways to get around. The 1,290-foot trains cruise up to 186 mph in certain areas. But one route stands apart — it’s the trip through the Channel Tunnel, with the journey beginning at London’s historic St. Pancras International train station and ending in Paris. Top route: London – Paris

7.ICE/NachtZug, Germany

 

Deutsche Bahn keeps passengers moving by day with their efficient and popular InterCityExpress, better known as ICE. For overnight trips, there’s the inviting NachtZug, or Night Train, which is a refreshing trip. Top route: ICE “Sprinter”: Berlin – Frankfurt; NachtZug: Hagen – Prague

 6 TAV, Italy

 

Many Italians like traveling by car or plane but trains are gaining popularity beyond intra-city use and considerable efforts are being made to emulate and connect with Europe’s finest. Top route: Rome – Florence

 

If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can sit on a train for almost 6,000 miles on the Trans-Siberian Railway otherwise you can opt for a shorter trip to go between the Russian areas you’ll want to cover on a visit. Top route: St. Petersburg – Moscow

 

Finland is one of those countries that just works; it’s exceptionally clean, efficient and trouble-free and the state-owned VR Group is no different. When you leave Helsinki, VR is probably the best way to take in the countryside.

Links and Source(s): Indiatimes

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Words can be tricky things, often spelled quite differently than how they sound, coming from foreign languages with different sets of rules, or being just plain weird. It’s no wonder then that so many people struggle with spelling, even those who are generally regarded as having some seriously brilliant minds. No, it’s not just grade-schoolers, college students, and the everyday man who struggles with the age old “i before e” dilemma, but also scientists, writers, and world leaders. Here, you’ll find a list of great thinkers who made great strides in their respective fields, but never could quite conquer the perils of spelling.

1. Alfred Mosher Butts

   Unfamiliar with this name? Well, you’re probably familiar with what he created, though it might surprise you to learn that Butts was a bad speller. He created the iconic and still quite popular game Scrabble, which requires one to be adept at spelling. The inventor himself was admittedly not the best speller, often scoring only 300 points on average in a game of Scrabble.

2. William Faulkner

   Faulkner wasn’t a truly terrible speller, but if you take a look at his original manuscripts there are some definite errors the iconic Southern author wouldn’t have wanted to see in print. Despite setting many of his famous books and short stories in the difficult to spell and pronounce Yoknapatawpha County, Faulkner’s editors confirm that despite their repeated attempts to point out his mistakes, he made spelling errors all through his career.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald

   Few writers are so known for their bad spelling as Fitzgerald. How bad, you say? Fitzgerald wasn’t even able to spell the name of one of his closest friends, Hemingway, often misaddressing him in correspondence and papers as “Earnest Hemminway.” The editor of his collected letters called him a “lamentable speller” who struggled with words like “definite” and “criticism.” Still, his poor spelling didn’t seem to do the author any harm, and many of his works are regarded as literary masterpieces today.

4. Ernest Hemingway

   Ernest Hemingway may not have had much room to judge when it came to his friend Fitzgerald not spelling his name correctly. Long before the days of spell check, Hemingway had to rely on newspaper and book editors to catch his mistakes, a job which they often complained would be a lot easier if he would make an effort to spell things correctly (though Hemingway retorted that that’s what they were being paid to do).

5. John Keats

   The brilliant Keats died quite young at only 26, so one can hardly blame him for not spending time worrying about spelling in his written works. If readers want to get a taste of his more interesting spelling choices, they only need turn to his letters. They record many odd spelling choices, including the misspelling of purple as “purplue” in a letter to his love Fanny Brawne, a misspelling which she questioned and Keats tried to cover up by saying he was creating a new combination of purple and blue.

6. Jane Austen

   Jane Austen may have a place among the literary elites today, but when it came to spelling and grammar she wasn’t too handy with either. Research into her personal letters and manuscripts has exposed numerous errors in spelling and grammar that were corrected later by her early editor, William Gifford. One of her favorite misspellings? She often spelled “scissors” as “scissars.”

7. Fannie Flagg

   Actress and author Fannie Flagg has had great success in her literary career, most notably with the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe which was later adapted into a highly successful film. Yet writing never came easy to Flagg, who has dyslexia. She has said she was challenged as a writer because she was “severely dyslexic and couldn’t spell, still can’t spell. So I was discouraged from writing and embarrassed.” Flagg obviously overcame her embarrassment, and has since written numerous books and screenplays.

8. Albert Einstein

   Being bilingual, one could hardly blame Einstein for being a bad speller in English. Yet it wasn’t just in English that Einstein struggled. He also was a pretty bad speller in his native German, and got even worse when he began using English more regularly. Of course, Einstein didn’t make those same errors when it came to writing mathematical equations, a fact that helped to make his name synonymous with genius today.

9. Winston Churchill

   While today Churchill may be regarded as a great leader and speaker, he had a rough start in his schooling, always struggling with spelling and writing. He was a notoriously bad speller throughout his life, but he never let it hold him back. He battled through his difficulties, which also included a speech impediment, to leave his mark on the world.

10. Leonardo Da Vinci

    Leonardo helped define the term “Renaissance man,” excelling in both the arts and the sciences, but spelling may not have been his forte. He is quoted as having once said, “You should prefer a good scientist without literary abilities than a literate one without scientific skills.” Some historians believe he may have been dyslexic (there is no way to prove that, of course) as his journals and writings are riddled with spelling errors common with dyslexics.

11. Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie penned some of the bestselling books ever created, but the author admitted once, “I, myself, was always recognized … as the “slow one” in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was … an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.” Despite her struggles with spelling, Christie was an enormously successful writer, and has gone down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling novelist of all time.

12. John F. Kennedy Jr.

    JFK is a figure that has fascinated the American public for decades, but what many may not know is just how bad of a speller the famous president was. He was outed for his poor spelling by his wife, Jackie, though she was a French literature major in college and would later become a book editor, so she may have been a pretty harsh critic.

13. W.B. Yeats

    Yeats is yet another famous author who, while quite adept at writing, was pretty terrible when it came to spelling. To see examples of his spelling errors, one need only find a copy of his collected letters which contain misspellings like “feal” for “feel” and “sleap” for “sleep”. Despite his inadequacy when it came to spelling, Yeats was a prolific and very successful writer, winning a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

14. John Irving

    John Irving is another author on this list whose poor spelling was the result of dyslexia. Sadly, Irving wasn’t recognized as having dyslexia until much later in his life, stating, “The diagnosis of dyslexia wasn’t available in the late fifties — bad spelling like mine was considered a psychological problem by the language therapist who evaluated my mysterious case. When the repeated courses of language therapy were judged to have had no discernible influence on me, I was turned over to the school psychiatrist.” Irving’s struggles with spelling affected him deeply, and he even reflects on them in one of his most famous novels, The World According to Garp, stating that English is such a mishmash of different languages that no one should ever feel stupid for being a bad speller.

15. Benjamin Franklin

    Ben Franklin wasn’t a particularly good speller in his time, and actually felt that the alphabet as it stood (and still does today) was what was holding so many back from being able to spell. In a letter he once wrote, “You need not be concerned in writing to me about your bad spelling, for in my opinion as our alphabet now stands the bad spelling, or what is called so, is generally best, as conforming to the sound of the letters and of the words.” Whether you struggle with spelling or not, you have to admit he has a point, as many words are spelled quite differently than they sound.

Links and Source(s):

Originally Published Here

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Noted science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov predicted that one day, we’d “have computer outlets in every home, each of them hooked up to enormous libraries where anyone can ask any question and be given answers, be given reference materials, be something you’re interested in knowing, from an early age, however silly it might seem to someone else,” and with this appliance, be able to truly enjoy learning instead of being forced to learn mundane facts and figures. His insight has proven to be amazingly accurate, as we now live in a world with the Internet, where nearly the entire wealth of human knowledge can live at our fingertips or even in our pockets. Such an amazing feat, of course, doesn’t happen without impacting our lives, and scientists have begun to note that the Internet has not only served to fulfill our brains’ curiosities, but also rewired them. So what exactly is the Internet doing to our brains? Read on to find out.

1. The Internet is our external hard drive

   We don’t have to remember phone numbers or addresses anymore. Instead, we can just hop on our email or Google to look it up. According to a study by Science Magazine, “the Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves,” and our brains have become reliant on the availability of information.

2. Children are learning differently

   Remember all of the history lessons that required you to remember dates, names, and finite details? Kids don’t do that nearly as much as they used to. With online libraries, “rote memorization is no longer a necessary part of education” according to Read Write Web. Educators are beginning to understand that information is now coming at us through a fire hose, quicker and faster than we can digest it, and memorizing facts wastes valuable brain power that could be used to keep up with more important information that can’t be quickly Googled.

3. We hardly ever give tasks our full attention

   Have you ever updated your Facebook while listening to music and texting a friend? If so, you’ve experienced the phenomenon of continuous partial attention and its impact on your brain. It remains to be seen if partial attention is a distraction as most believe, or an adaptation of the brain to the constant flow of stimuli.

4. We don’t bother to remember

   In a study by Science Magazine, students were asked to type in pieces of trivia, and depending on their group were told that their information would either be erased or saved. The group that was told their data would be saved were less likely to remember. This study indicates that people have lower rates of recall when they can expect to be able to access information in the future.

5. We’re getting better at finding information

   Although we can’t remember it all, we’re getting better at finding the information we need. It seems that the brainpower previously used to retain facts and information is now being used to remember how to look it up. Professor Betsy Sparrow reports, “We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.” She indicates that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and may even be “kind of amazing,” as we’re adapting to new technology and becoming highly skilled in remembering where to find things.

6. Difficult questions make us think about computers

   When faced with a difficult question, people rarely consider the encyclopedia or history books, but rather, think about computers. It’s a brand new impulse that exists in our brains. For many, this means we don’t have to trek to the library, or, with the ubiquity of smartphones, even go much farther than our own pockets. It’s no longer a big deal to find an old classmate or remember the name of an actor in a movie — all you have to do is Google it.

7. IQ is increasing over time

   In the age of MTV and video games, parents and experts worried that the new and flashy technologies would fry our poor brains into oblivion. But the exact opposite has happened: after MTV, after video games, after Twitter, Facebook, and Google, we’re getting smarter. Are we smarter because of technology, or in spite of it? No one’s answered that question yet, but it’s interesting to think about.

8. Our concentration is suffering

   In an article for The Atlantic, Nicholas Carr relates his growing difficulty in deep reading. Like so many others, he finds that “deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” It’s not hard to figure out why. Our time online is often spent scanning headlines and posts and quickly surfing links, never spending much time on any one thing. So of course, when it comes to reading more than a few minutes, or even moments, of information, your mind will often begin to wander. (If you find your concentration is getting worse, try brushing up on your memory skills with sites like The Original Memory Gym.)

9. We’re getting better at determining relevance

   With so much information, it’s only natural that some of it is junk. After all, we’re no longer in a world bound by printing presses and editors: just about anyone can put information out there and promote the heck out of it. It’s up to us as readers and consumers of information to determine what’s relevant and reliable, and with so much practice, our brains are getting better at this task every day.

10. We’re becoming physically addicted to technology

    Even after unplugging, many Internet users feel a craving for the stimulation received from gadgets. The culprit is dopamine, which is delivered as a response to the stimulation — without it, you feel bored. The wife of a heavy technology user notes that her husband is “crotchety until he gets his fix.” After spending time online, your brain wants to get back on for more, making it difficult to concentrate on other tasks and “unplug.”

11. The more you use the Internet, the more it lights up your brain

    In 2007, UCLA professor Gary Small tested experienced surfers and newbie Internet users, asking them to Google a variety of preselected topics. In his experiment, he monitored brain activity, noting that experienced surfers showed much more activity than novice users, especially in the areas typically devoted to decisions and problem solving. He brought them all back six days later, this time having the newbies spend an hour each day searching online in the period before they came back. In the second test, the novice surfers’ brains looked more like the intermediate Internet users. “Five hours on the Internet and the naive subjects had already rewired their brains,” noted Small, suggesting that over time, Internet use changes neural pathways.

12. Our brains constantly seek out incoming information

    Tests at Stanford indicate that multitaskers, such as heavy Internet users, often tend to overlook older, valuable information, instead choosing to seek out new information. Clifford Nass of Stanford observes, “we’ve got a large and growing group of people who think the slightest hint that something interesting might be going on is like catnip. They can’t ignore it.” Instead of focusing on important tasks, or putting information to good use, we’re distracted by incoming email.

13. We’ve become power browsers

    Online browsing has created a new form of “reading,” in which users aren’t really reading online, but rather power browsing through sites. Instead of left to right, up to down reading, we seem to scan through titles, bullet points, and information that stands out. Comprehension and attention are certainly at risk here.

14. Online thinking persists even offline

    When you’re online, you’re frequently attacked by bursts of information, which is highly stimulating and even overwhelming. Too much, and you can become extremely distracted and unfocused. Even after you log off (if you ever do), your brain remains rewired. A lack of focus and fractured thinking can persist, interrupting work, family, and offline time.

15. Creative thinking may suffer

    Some experts believe that memorization is critical to creativity. William Klemm, a neuroscience professor at Texas A&M University insists that “Creativity comes from a mind that knows, and remembers, a lot.” Although creativity seems to have grown with the use of technology, it’s certainly being done in new and different ways. And Klemm’s assertion is certainly true for creative thinking and brainstorming born out of memorized knowledge, which so many of us now store online.

First published here

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Fastest

10 :: Shenyang, China

9 :: Santiago, Chile

8 :: Shenzhen, China

7 :: Istanbul, Turkey

6 :: Ankara, Turkey

5 :: Hangzhou, China

4 :: Izmir, Turkey

3 :: Jiddah, Saudi Arabia

2 :: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

1 :: Shanghai, China

Not So Good…..

10 :: Richmond, VA

9 :: Valencia, Spain

8 :: Barcelona, Spain

7 :: Naples, Italy

6 :: Madrid, Spain

5 :: Sacramento, CA

4 :: Seville, Spain

3 :: Dublin, Ireland

2 :: Lisbon, Portugal

1 :: Athens, Greece

Links and Source(s) :

Read Here

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What seems to causing this phenomenal change  is La Nina – a phenomenon better known in India for aiding good monsoon rains.La Nina, which in Spanish means ‘the girl’, is a condition when surface temperatures in the south Pacific Ocean fall below normal.
It is the opposite of the notorious El Nino  usually associated with failure of the monsoon in India. But like its counterpart, La Nina leads to changes in global air circulation patterns which drive weather extremes across the world.

After a mild December, temperatures across India decreased rapidly in the second week of January. Since then, the west Himalayas have experienced heavy and unusually widespread snowfall, the northern plains have been chilly while central and parts of south India have had record-breaking cold spells.
The sudden  cold is being partly attributed to an Arctic wind pattern that changed in January, sending spells of snow downwards into Europe and Asia. “Depending on its intensity, Eurasian snow can lead to snowfall in the Himalayas,” said S K Dash, a climate scientist at IIT Delhi.

Links and Sources:

Source:Indiatimes

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The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA .NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an  analysis that shows temperatures around the globe in 2011 compared to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows  Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.

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Finish this TV show lyric: “Heroes in a halfshell…” If you can without cheating, you’re probably a Millennial. There’s no hard and fast start date for Generation Y, or the Millennial Generation, but 1980 through 1995 is generally considered the time Generation X gave way to Generation Next. We children of the 80s began life in the “me” generation, and we came of age in the “we” generation of the Internet. Our unique place in history has shaped our character in many ways, for better and worse. Here are eight of the greatest strengths of Generation Y-ers.

1. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

   Divorce rates in the U.S. peaked almost simultaneously with the beginning of Gen Y. As the children of broken homes, Millennials resolved to not let work ruin their marriages and relationships. Tragedies at home and war abroad have reminded us at pivotal young ages that tomorrow is not promised us, and that no one ever said on their deathbed, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Millennials are strong at balancing their professional and personal lives.

2. The value of a dollar

   Despite a bad rap that paints us as reckless spenders, a recent survey found that Millennials are up to three times as likely to want to save money compared to our parents and grandparents. No doubt part of this mentality is borne of necessity — we harbor no illusions about the awful state of the economy. Eighty-five percent of us that graduated in 2011 moved back home with our parents, a cost-saving measure that previous generations shunned, regardless of need.

3. Get involved

   Although the baby boomers certainly made their voices heard by the politicians of their day, they fell far short in community activism. Their cry was “do what feels good.” Since the sobering events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, Millennials have recognized the need to participate in serving others, from their own neighborhoods to the global community. In 2006, 61% of 13- to 25-year-olds said they feel personally responsible for improving the world. In 2008, Millennials swept former community organizer Barack Obama into office with the highest margin of victory in our age bracket ever. Our mandate to him has been to support the social uprisings in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere.

4. I have confidence in me

   Gen Y-ers are nothing if not confident. Thanks to a childhood full of positive feedback from “helicopter parents” determined to reverse their parents’ cycle of tearing kids down, employers are often taken aback at just how self-assured Millennials are. Despite the fact nearly 40% of us have no job, nine out of ten Millennials believe they will eventually meet their financial goals. In the workplace, we are outspoken and not afraid to challenge outmoded ways of doing business.

5. We don’t stand on ceremony here

   Generation Y is all about efficiency. Laptops instead of desktops. Cell phones instead of landlines. Telecommuting instead of polluting commuting. We aren’t afraid to cut something that’s always been done before just because that’s how it’s always been done. With an estimated value of $50 billion, Facebook is a perfect example of a super-successful company changing the way an office feels, under the careful direction of Millennial Mark Zuckerberg. Employees in casual clothes lounge on mats, write on walls, and move furniture when they feel like it.

6. Give us tech and watch us go

   The Internet and basically everything associated with it came into wide use on our watch. Our development was mirrored by tech’s development — Atari to Nintendo to Sega, car phones to cell phones to smartphones. The boomers were too busy with work to pay attention to what was happening, but we factored it in to our growth and made it part of ourselves. Herein lies our greatest strength: we use technology as well as anyone, but we know what to do when the tech breaks down, because we know the steps it took to get us where we are.

7. Zero intolerance

   Changing social values and an increasingly diverse population have made us Millennials a pretty tolerant group. A majority of us believe immigrants make society stronger. Although we’re split over same-sex marriage, by comparison, baby boomers oppose equal marriage rights for homosexuals 2-to-1. Ninety-three percent of us approve of interracial dating. Our ability to work alongside people of different races, lifestyles, and beliefs makes for a much more productive and efficient class of employees. Fortunately, the blind prejudices and bigotries of our ancestors are mainly a thing of the past.

8. The joy of teamwork

   Maybe it’s our desire to be well-liked and to have a high friend count, but Millennials are great team players. Through school projects and massive, collaborative online games, we grew so comfortable working with others that many of us say we are more productive working in teams than on our own. This has obvious benefits in the workplace. Where other generations may have seen in teamwork only the danger that hard work will not be rewarded and poor work will blamed on a scapegoat, Millennials thrive on being part of a team.

first published here

]]> http://rashidfaridi.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/strengths-of-generation-y/feed/ 1 rashidfaridi Portrait of young business professionals http://rashidfaridi.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/issuespriorities-and-challenges-for-indian-agriculturea-worldbank-view/ http://rashidfaridi.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/issuespriorities-and-challenges-for-indian-agriculturea-worldbank-view/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:57:54 +0000 Rashid Faridi http://rashidfaridi.wordpress.com/?p=6418 ]]>

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While agriculture’s share in India’s economy has progressively declined to 18% due to the high growth rates of the industrial and services sectors, the sector’s importance in India’s economic and social fabric goes well beyond this indicator. First, nearly three-quarters of India’s families depend on rural incomes. Second, the majority of India’s poor (some 770 million people or about 70 percent) are found in rural areas. And third, India’s food security depends on an increase in the production of food staples, especially cereals, to meet the demands of a growing population that has rising incomes.

India is a global agricultural powerhouse. It is the world’s largest producer of milk, pulses, and spices, and has the world’s largest cattle herd (buffaloes), as well as the largest area under wheat, rice and cotton. It is the second largest producer of rice, wheat, cotton, sugarcane, farmed fish, sheep & goat meat, fruit, vegetables and tea. The country has some 195 m ha under cultivation of which some 63 percent are rainfed (roughly 125m ha) while 37 percent are irrigated (70m ha). In addition, forests cover some 65m ha of India’s land.

Challenges

Three agriculture sector challenges will be important to India’s overall development and the improved welfare of its rural poor:

1. Raising agricultural productivity per unit of land: Raising productivity per unit of land will need to be the main engine of agricultural growth as virtually all cultivable land is farmed. Water resources are also limited and water for irrigation must contend with increasing industrial and urban needs. All measures to increase productivity will need exploiting, amongst them: increasing yields, diversification to higher value crops, and developing value chains to reduce marketing costs.

2. Reducing rural poverty through a socially inclusive strategy that comprises both agriculture as well as non-farm employment: Rural development must also benefit the poor, landless, women, scheduled castes and tribes. Moreover, there are strong regional disparities: the majority of India’s poor are in rain-fed areas or in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic plains. Reaching such groups has not been easy. While progress has been made – the rural population classified as poor fell from nearly 40% in the early 1990s to below 30% by the mid-2000s (about a 1% fall per year) – there is a clear need for a faster reduction. Hence, poverty alleviation is a central pillar of the rural development efforts of the Government and the World Bank.

3. Ensuring that agricultural growth responds to food security needs: The sharp rise in food-grain production during India’s Green Revolution of the 1970s enabled the country to achieve self-sufficiency in food-grains and stave off the threat of famine. Agricultural intensification in the 1970s to 1980s saw an increased demand for rural labor that raised rural wages and, together with declining food prices, reduced rural poverty. However agricultural growth in the 1990s and 2000s slowed down, averaging about 3.5% per annum, and cereal yields have increased by only 1.4% per annum in the 2000s. The slow-down in agricultural growth has become a major cause for concern. India’s rice yields are one-third of China’s and about half of those in Vietnam and Indonesia. The same is true for most other agricultural commodities.

Policy makers will thus need to initiate and/or conclude policy actions and public programs to shift the sector away from the existing policy and institutional regime that appears to be no longer viable and build a solid foundation for a much more productive, internationally competitive, and diversified agricultural sector.

Priority Areas for Support

1. Enhancing agricultural productivity, competitiveness, and rural growth

Promoting new technologies and reforming agricultural research and extension: Major reform and strengthening of India’s agricultural research and extension systems is one of the most important needs for agricultural growth. These services have declined over time due to chronic underfunding of infrastructure and operations, no replacement of aging researchers or broad access to state-of-the-art technologies. Research now has little to provide beyond the time-worn packages of the past. Public extension services are struggling and offer little new knowledge to farmers. There is too little connection between research and extension, or between these services and the private sector.

Improving Water Resources and Irrigation/Drainage Management: Agriculture is India’s largest user of water. However, increasing competition for water between industry, domestic use and agriculture has highlighted the need to plan and manage water on a river basin and multi-sectoral basis. As urban and other demands multiply, less water is likely to be available for irrigation. Ways to radically enhance the productivity of irrigation (“more crop per drop”) need to be found. Piped conveyance, better on-farm management of water, and use of more efficient delivery mechanisms such as drip irrigation are among the actions that could be taken. There is also a need to manage as opposed to exploit the use of groundwater. Incentives to pump less water such as levying electricity charges or community monitoring of use have not yet succeeded beyond sporadic initiatives. Other key priorities include: (i) modernizing Irrigation and Drainage Departments to integrate the participation of farmers and other agencies in managing irrigation water; (ii) improving cost recovery; (iii) rationalizing public expenditures, with priority to completing schemes with the highest returns; and (iv) allocating sufficient resources for operations and maintenance for the sustainability of investments.

Facilitating agricultural diversification to higher-value commodities: Encouraging farmers todiversify to higher value commodities will be a significant factor for higher agricultural growth, particularly in rain-fed areas where poverty is high. Moreover, considerable potential exists for expanding agro-processing and building competitive value chains from producers to urban centers and export markets. While diversification initiatives should be left to farmers and entrepreneurs, the Government can, first and foremost, liberalize constraints to marketing, transport, export and processing. It can also play a small regulatory role, taking due care that this does not become an impediment.

Promoting high growth commodities: Some agricultural sub-sectors have particularly high potential for expansion, notably dairy. The livestock sector, primarily due to dairy, contributes over a quarter of agricultural GDP and is a source of income for 70% of India’s rural families, mostly those who are poor and headed by women. Growth in milk production, at about 4% per annum, has been brisk, but future domestic demand is expected to grow by at least 5% per annum. Milk production is constrained, however, by the poor genetic quality of cows, inadequate nutrients, inaccessible veterinary care, and other factors. A targeted program to tackle these constraints could boost production and have good impact on poverty.

Developing markets, agricultural credit and public expenditures: India’s legacy of extensive government involvement in agricultural marketing has created restrictions in internal and external trade, resulting in cumbersome and high-cost marketing and transport options for agricultural commodities. Even so, private sector investment in marketing, value chains and agro-processing is growing, but much slower than potential. While some restrictions are being lifted, considerably more needs to be done to enable diversification and minimize consumer prices. Improving access to rural finance for farmers is another need as it remains difficult for farmers to get credit. Moreover, subsidies on power, fertilizers and irrigation have progressively come to dominate Government expenditures on the sector, and are now four times larger than investment expenditures, crowding out top priorities such as agricultural research and extension.

2. Poverty alleviation and community actions

While agricultural growth will, in itself, provide the base for increasing incomes, for the 170 million or so rural persons that are below the poverty line, additional measures are required to make this growth inclusive. For instance, a rural livelihoods program that empowers communities to become self-reliant has been found to be particularly effective and well-suited for scaling-up. This program promotes the formation of self-help groups, increases community savings, and promotes local initiatives to increase incomes and employment. By federating to become larger entities, these institutions of the poor gain the strength to negotiate better prices and market access for their products, and also gain the political power over local governments to provide them with better technical and social services. These self-help groups are particularly effective at reaching women and impoverished families.

3. Sustaining the environment and future agricultural productivity

In parts of India, the over-pumping of water for agricultural use is leading to falling groundwater levels. Conversely, water-logging is leading to the build-up of salts in the soils of some irrigated areas. In rain-fed areas on the other hand, where the majority of the rural population live, agricultural practices need adapting to reduce soil erosion and increase the absorption of rainfall. Overexploited and degrading forest land need mitigation measures. There are proven solutions to nearly all of these problems. The most comprehensive is through watershed management programs, where communities engage in land planning and adopt agricultural practices that protect soils, increase water absorption and raise productivity through higher yields and crop diversification. At issue, however, is how to scale up such initiatives to cover larger areas of the country. Climate change must also be considered. More extreme events – droughts, floods, erratic rains – are expected and would have greatest impact in rain-fed areas. The watershed program, allied with initiatives from agricultural research and extension, may be the most suited agricultural program for promoting new varieties of crops and improved farm practices. But other thrusts, such as the livelihoods program and development of off-farm employment may also be key.

World Bank Support

With some $5.5 billion in net commitments from both IDA and IBRD, and 24 ongoing projects, the World Bank’s agriculture and rural development program in India is by far the Bank’s largest such program worldwide in absolute dollar terms. This figure is even higher when investments in rural development such as rural roads, rural finance and human development are included. Nonetheless, this amount is relatively small when compared with the Government’s – both central and state – funding of public programs in support of agriculture. Most of the Bank’s agriculture and rural development assistance is geared towards state-level support, but some also takes place at the national level.

The Bank’s Agricultural and Rural Development portfolio is clustered across three broad themes with each project, generally, showing a significant integration of these themes.

Agriculture, watershed and natural resources management

• Water & irrigated agriculture
• Rural livelihood development

Over the past five to ten years, the Bank has been supporting:

R&D in Agricultural Technology through two national level projects with pan-India implementation (the National Agriculture Technology Project and the National Agriculture Innovation Project) coordinated by the Government of India’s Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Dissemination of Agricultural Technology: New approaches towards the dissemination of agricultural technology such as the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) model have contributed to diversification of agricultural production in Assam and Uttar Pradesh. This extension approach is now being scaled-up across India.

Better delivery of irrigation water: World Bank support for the better delivery of irrigation water ranges from projects covering large irrigation infrastructure to local tanks and ponds. Projects also support the strengthening of water institutions in several states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh) improved groundwater management practices (for instance, in the upcoming Rajasthan Agriculture Competitiveness Project).

Sustainable agricultural practices through watershed and rainfed agriculture development (Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand), soil reclamation efforts (Uttar Pradesh) and, more recently, improved groundwater management practices (for instance, in the upcoming Rajasthan Agriculture Competitiveness Project).

Improved access to rural credit and greater gender involvement in rural economic activities through rural livelihood initiatives undertaken by a number of states (Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu) and soon to be scaled up by GOI with Bank support through a National Rural Livelihood Mission.

Agricultural insurance by advising GOI on how to improve the actuarial design and implementation of the insurance program (e.g. rating methodology and product design, index insurance, use of mobile and remote sensing technology to measure yields, etc.).

Improved farmer access to agriculture markets through policy reforms and investments under the Maharashtra Agricultural Competitiveness Project which aims to reform regulated wholesale markets and provide farmers with alternative market opportunities.

The land policy agenda through analytical work as well as non-lending technical assistance in support of GOI’s National Land Records Modernization Program.

Better rural connectivity through IDA support to the Prime Minister’s National Rural Roads Program (PMGSY), and by connecting rural poor and smallholder farmers through collective action to public services through Self-Help Groups (and SHG federations), Water User Associations and Farmer Producer Organizations. Recently the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved the National Rural Livelihood Mission, which supports SHG approaches through a pan-India approach.

Link and Sources:

World Bank

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