The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has proved to be a boon for the tribal population in Wayanad district. It is the largest and the most successful livelihood programme under way in the tribes-dominated district. Women account for 775 of the person days of employment generated by the scheme, each of them earning Rs.125 as daily wage. The impact of the scheme on social structures has been significant,...

A combination of factors led by state policy has enabled the southern State to become a notable achiever with respect to some key indicators of development. In 2001, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen recorded an eyebrow-raising fact in his book, “Development as Freedom”, that Tamil Nadu and Kerala had both achieved much faster rates of decline in fertility than China had achieved since it introduced its one-child policy. That same year, the international...

Nearly a million tribals have been given land rights under the forest rights act and they will be made stakeholders in development projects, says Tribal Affairs Minister Kantilal Bhuria, as this largely neglected section of Indian society comes to the fore of government policy. “We have received over 28 lakh (2.8 million) representations for land rights, of which 10 lakh claimants have been given land rights,” Bhuria, 60, who is himself...

The government is likely to make it mandatory for mining companies to hand over a part of their revenues and make annual payments to land losers, bringing compensation rules in this sector in line with a policy followed by the Haryana government which has won the backing of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. But in a sop to companies, which have been unenthusiastic about earlier plans for profit-sharing, the ministry of...

KEY TRENDS   • Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which provides for excluding 13 Central legislation, including Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Railway Act 1989, National Highways Act 1956 and Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978, from its purview, has been amended for payment of compensation with rigours $ • The amendments have now...