It is not often that a social security programme the size of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS - New Delhi has spent Rs 40,000 crore on it in 2010/11 alone - faces an existential moment. But, April 2011 will present one such crossroad: the end of the term of a bureaucrat widely acknowledged as the prime mover behind the five-year old scheme. Brought in six years ago to the Centre from her parent...

“Quartz grinding is one of the deadliest occupations” “Slowly, but surely, every one of us who has been to the factories in Gujarat will die, and there is nothing we can do to change that,” Buddha (45) of Undli village says bitterly. Buddha lost his 18-year-old-son Mohan to acute silicosis a year ago. His 16-year-old daughter Ghamma is still suffering from the disease. Silicosis, the deadly scourge unleashed upon migrant labourers of...

Gandhi resorted to some 30 fasts, of which one-third were directed at himself, for ‘atonement’ or self-purification, one-third were directed against the raj and one-third at India’s social mores. A more honest trinity cannot be imagined. The latter two kinds of fasts were meant to make an impact on the ‘other side’; they were part-fasts and part- hunger strikes, part anashan and part bhukh-hartal, though he derived from each a sense...

After forming syndicates, the liquor mafia in Nizamabad district is now targeting young workers of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme ( MGNREGS) to rake in more moolah. Towards this end, the powerful mafia succeeded by roping in village development committees (VDCs) to help them open more belt shops in villages. Though it was illegal, a majority of these belt shops are being run in residential colonies, slum areas and...

The scheme has reduced rural migration and promoted financial inclusion, but needs to create more durable assets. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) – the only government social welfare scheme named after the other Gandhi, not belonging to Nehru-Gandhi family – has recently completed five years. The performance of the scheme, considered a major pillar of UPA government's strategy of inclusive growth, has been a matter of debate. The...