Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the rural development ministry to develop an index for fixing and revising wages under rural job scheme NREGA. The move follows a letter from Sonia Gandhi requesting Singh to find a way to ensure workers under the scheme are paid the minimum wages across the country. The minimum wages in several states, such as Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Karnataka, are now higher than...

The government has firmed up an indexing system of minimum wages for various categories of labour to match the inflation after Congress President Sonia Gandhi asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that labourers are paid the minimum wages. The Rural Development Ministry is soon expected to issue a notification detailing the payment of minimum wages to various categories of workers, like industrial labourer or agricultural labourer, in tune with inflation,...

Right to Education a special achievement of our government: Prime Minister Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said making education a fundamental right was one of the special achievements of his government. “If there is one initiative that our government has taken in these six and a half years in office I consider really special, it is the Right to Education that has now been enshrined in our Constitution,” he said,...

India’s food inflation accelerated for the fifth straight week to the highest in more than a year, reinforcing fears it will spill over to broader prices and pile pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to tighten monetary policy. Unseasonal rains have pushed up prices of vegetables such as onions and tomatoes in recent weeks, and the authorities are bracing to live with elevated price levels in the near term. Onion...

The Centre today announced doubling of funds allocation under a special plan for Bihar to Rs 2,000 crore for the current fiscal, a move that should please Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who has been seeking greater central assistance. Effectively, the increase in central allocation would mean that the NDA-ruled state can spend extra Rs 1,000 crore on power, roads and irrigation within the three months ending March 31, 2011. The decision to...