-Press Information Bureau The India Rural Development Report 2012/13 was released here by Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Rural Development, Government of India. The Report was prepared by IDFC Foundation in collaboration with network partners, the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), the Institute for Rural Management Anand (IRMA), and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), with contributions from several other researchers, experts and civil society organisations. On...

-The Pioneer Forget about doling out mandatory unemployment allowance under the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), majority of the Congress-ruled States in the country are yet to notify unemployment allowance rules under the UPA's flagship rural job scheme launched in 2007. The rules mandate the States to pay the daily allowance to a registered worker if he is not provided a job within 15 days of the receipt...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government is working on a new index based on the consumption pattern of rural landless labour to fix wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a move that is set to result in slower annual wage hike increases under the government's flagship social welfare programme. Rural wages under MGNREGA are at present based on the consumer price index for agricultural labourers (CPI-AL), which...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel has asked the Centre to bring parity between wages under the rural employment guarantee programme and those given by states for agricultural labour under the Minimum Wages Act. The recommendation of the panel, headed by BJP leader Sumitra Mahajan, comes as a shot in the arm for the rural development ministry's proposal to link wages under the rural employment programme and the minimum wages...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: After losing her husband to an illness, Jeyanthi (name changed) was forced to step in as the bread earner for her six young children. With no education, work was hard to come by for her, and existence was at bare subsistence levels. Jeyanthi got by, working as a casual labourer; and as her sons became older, they too pitched in. Life was to take a nastier...