-Economic and Political Weekly   Among the various axes of inequality in India, regional disparities have acquired greater salience in recent times, with demands being made for special status for certain states on this basis. What has been completely overlooked in the process is that regional backwardness in India is a moving frontier with the most intense forms of poverty and deprivation getting increasingly concentrated within enclaves of backwardness, especially those inhabited...

-The Hindu Terming death penalty a "cruel and barbaric" punishment used mainly against the "marginalised and poor", hundreds of eminent citizens, including Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, actor Aamir Khan, sociologist Andre Beteille, economist Jagdish Bhagwati and author Vikram Seth among others, issued a public statement on Sunday opposing the practice. Arguing that more than 70 per cent of the world's countries were abolitionist in law or practice, they said India "clings to...

-FirstPost.com What compelled a group of leading economists from India and abroad to shoot a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the government's job scheme - the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA? Is it to speak out against the government's desperation to throttle the scheme or did the economists sense any ulterior motive behind the government's move? A section of prominent Indian economists working out of the country or...

-The Indian Express As leading economists urged the Prime Minister not to dilute the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme saying it provides economic security to millions, Union Minister for Rural Development Nitin Gadkari justified the Centre's decision to restrict the focus of the job scheme to the "most backward and needy" districts and reduce the labour-material ratio from 60:40 to 51:49. Denying any move to reduce compensation for lack of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Overriding objections raised by senior officials, rural development minister Nitin Gadkari has ordered far-reaching changes in the job guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) which has provided seasonal work to one in three rural households in the last eight years. Documents obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by activists show file notings by a senior official in the ministry arguing that Gadkari's announcements run contrary to the...