-The Telegraph   Officials are set to propose to the Narendra Modi government that the UPA's blockbuster rural job scheme be restricted to select districts as the decision in 2008 to extend it to all districts was not required. The officials of the rural development ministry are expected to tell the new minister that the funds allocated for the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) were not adequate for national...

-Down to Earth Most suicides among orchard farmers, say observers As many as 101 farmers have committed suicide in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra since the devastating hailstorms in March this year. This sudden spurt of suicides has raised concerns as to whether this arid region is heading for an agrarian crisis similar to that of Vidarbha. A whopping 71 suicides have been reported in the month of March 2014, close on the...

-The United Nations   Millions of people suffering under the yoke of modern slavery - more than half are women and girls primarily in commercial sex trade or domestic work - are generating some $150 billion a year in illegal profits for the people who are exploiting them, according to a new report released today by the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO). The startling new report, Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced...

-The Indian Express   Available data suggests the programme has been effective in reducing rural poverty and gender discrimination Nirmala Sitharaman's misinformation (‘How not to run a programme', IE, May 9) on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which employs one in every four Indian rural households every year, is disappointing. Consider these facts. For the first time in over two decades, the increase in rural consumption (a proxy indicator...

-Down to Earth   People of West Bengal's Sunderbans region are setting up grain banks to safeguard against food crisis Subedan Bibi's mud hut is a few metres from the banks of the Bakchara river, a distributary of the Hugli in Sunderbans region of South 24 Parganas. When the river is in spate she and most others of Goyadham village move to the main market in the nearby block. "Floods and storms destroy...