-Newsclick.in Shrinking farm incomes, frozen wages and lack of jobs is driving people to work in the scheme for a pittance. Nearly 9 crore Indians applied for work in the rural jobs guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) in 2017-18, according to data put out by the ministry of rural development. That’s a staggering 42% of the rural work force. Of those who applied for work, some 1.4 crore persons (or about 15%) were turned...

-Newsclick.in Families continue being denied ration and social security pension, due to lack of Aadhaar or failure of biometric authentication. People from 14 states testified to the rampant violations of the Right to Food at a national public hearing on 15 March organised by the Right to Food Campaign at the Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi. The testimonies spoke of the denials of entitlements — to food, social security pensions and even work...

  A national-level public hearing, which was organized at the Gandhi Peace Foundation (Delhi) on 15th March, 2018, has revealed that the intended beneficiaries of various entitlement-based welfare schemes and programmes of the Central government are witnessing difficulties and impediments in accessing the benefits and services. During the public hearing, which was organized by the Right to Food Campaign along with partnering grassroots-level organizations, poor and marginalized citizens from across 14 states...

-Newsclick.in An assessment conducted by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan and the Centre for Equity Studies has flagged the problems of huge pendency of appeals and complaints as well as long waiting periods for disposal. The information commissions (ICs) set up under the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005 are critical to citizens exercising the hard-won Right to Information, which can hold the government and public offices accountable. But a new report on...

-Newsclick.in An explosive farming crisis and sustained protests over the past two years have converged in the historic march by 50,000 farmers to Mumbai. Over the past six days, India has slowly woken up to farmers’ distress – and their resistance. On 6 March, about 20,000 farmers from various parts of the state mobilized by the CPI (M) affiliated All India Kisan Sabha gathered at Nashik in north-western Maharashtra to begin a...