On 8/20/07, ashok _ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One aspect, that I am surprised he didnt cover is the issue of smaller > and smaller land-holdings because of inheritance. You have a farmer > who started with 20 acres, had five sons, each was left with a less > viable 4 acres... and so on.... and they all end up working > in a back alley in a city... This is probably an issue related to land > reforms, making farming land more easily available....
I think that's been a fairly well trodden path since the days of co-operative farming in communist states. I don't claim it's a non-issue, but merely a well understood one. That state policies still allow this to happen is a statement on how ineffective the general level of governance is in India. My favorite data point here is the benefits transfer statistic of the public distribution system as documented by innumerable sources - it is less than 1/4th of the budget allocation. One of the points that really needs more publicizing in the post liberalization India is the current state of information disparity - the case in point being his example of two neighboring pieces of land being sold for vastly different sums. Cheeni Cheeni
