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How SMEs can use AI and data science tools? - Automationkingz SMEs today are hesitant to adopt new and emerging technologies such as AI and data science due to lack of skills. If we observe closely technological advancement and digital innovation in the last few years have been key factors in defining the success of businesses. One of the reasons that make the...

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An Uncertain Hobbesian life

India’s small farmers have been struggling for centuries now and they need social and governmental action to change their future
Of India’s 121 million agricultural holdings, 99 million are with small and marginal farmers, with a land share of just 44 per cent and a farmer population share of 87 per cent. With multiple cropping prevalent, such farmers account for 70 per cent of all vegetables and 52 per cent of cereal output. According to National Sample Survey Office data, 33 per cent of all farm households have less than 0.4 hectares of land. About 50 per cent of agricultural households are indebted. In Sultanpur district, Uttar Pradesh, cultivation cost per hectare for wheat has increased by 33 per cent in five years. Such farmers face an uncertain Hobbesian life: poor, brutish and short.
Rain-fed agriculture has been practised since antiquity in India, with Indus Valley farmers growing peas, sesame and dates. Greek historian Herodotus had noted in The Histories: “India has many vast plains of great fertility. Since there is a double rainfall, the inhabitants of India almost always gather in two harvests annually.” With the British era came the zamindars, the ryots and penury. As Tirthankar Roy notes in The Economic History of India, 1857-1947, “from 1891 to 1946, diminishing returns coupled with growing land-shortage and yield deceleration led to an acute crisis, particularly in Bengal.” India’s marginal farmers have been worse off for centfarming

Alleviating marginal farming

Our policymakers recognised this dependence on rain and formulated policies focussed on supporting canal-fed crops and improving agricultural productivity. This they coupled with incentive structures, pricing regimes and input subsidies. A bewildering array of schemes was launched — Small Farmers Development Agency (1971), Integrated Rural Development Programme (1980), Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY, 1999) and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Skewed by a bureaucratic approach, these schemes focussed on creating yearly jobs and roads, while resisting decentralisation and localised decision-making. Individual symptoms were mitigated, while long-term food security and ecological sustainability were ignored.
The Drought Prone Area Programme (1974) was “concerned with drought proofing rather than livelihoods and growth-focussed development.” The National Policy on Farmers (2007) focussed on improving farmer income through better risk management and an improved price policy. Implementation, sadly, was lacking, with less than 30 per cent of small and marginal farmers borrowing from institutional credit systems.

The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (2011) allocated Rs.10 lakh to each district to prepare and implement the Comprehensive District Agriculture Plan with the participation of local panchayats. The discussions were mostly chaired by the local minister or district collector, with little reflection on farmers’ needs. Best practices were mostly ignored.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

1) G20 summit 2014 began at which city on 15 November 2014?
(A) Sochi, Russia
(B) Brisbane, Australia
(C) Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar
(D) Suva, Fiji

2) Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has recently decided to use which as a third language in schools of Kendriya Vidyalaya (KVs) in place of German language?
(A) Hindi
(B) Spanish
(C) Sanskrit
(D) Urdu

3) Which Indian was inducted on board of the INTERPOL Foundation on 15 November 2014 to contribute to two new global initiatives aimed at combating organised crime and terrorist activities?
(A) Ratan Tata
(B) Shashi Tharoor
(C) APJ Abdul Kalam
(D) None of these

4) Three day National Children's Film Festival (NCFF) began on 14 November 2014. Which city is hosting the event?
(A) Hyderabad
(B) Thiruvananthapuram
(C) Pune
(D) New Delhi

5) In a bid to attract more viewers, public broadcaster Doordarshan is relaunching its national channel with a tagline called?
(A) "Desh ka Apna channel"
(B) "Dekh ka Apna channel"
(C) "Bharat ka Apna channel"
(D) "Hamara channel"

6) Central government has launched a modified Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme in total how many districts across 11 states starting November 15, 2014?
(A) 43
(B) 18
(C) 54
(D) 58

7) Which Bollywood actor-director was on 14 November 2014 became the first man in UN Women’s history to be appointed its Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia?
(A) Aamir Khan
(B) Bomman Irani
(C) Karan Johar
(D) Farhan Akhtar

8) Which country has recently launched a remote sensing satellite named Yaogan-23?
(A) Argentina
(B) China
(C) Japan
(D) France

9) India has successfully test-fired it’s nuclear-capable which ballistic missile from a naval ship off the Odisha coast on 14 November 2014?
(A) Nirbhay
(B) Agni
(C) Dhanush
(D) Prithvi

10) Who is the only cricketer in the history of ODI cricket to hit two double centuries?
(A) Virendar Sehwag
(B) Sachin Tendulkar
(C) Suresh Raina
(D) Rohit Robin Sharma

Answers
1) Ans. (B) Brisbane, Australia
2) Ans. (C) Sanskrit
3) Ans. (A) Ratan Tata
4) Ans. (D) New Delhi
5) Ans. (A) "Desh ka Apna channel"
6) Ans. (C) 54
7) Ans. (D) Farhan Akhtar
8) Ans. (B) China
9) Ans. (C) Dhanush
10) Ans. (D) Rohit Sharma