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...
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Reluctant migrants by Mahim Pratap Singh
Bolangir district in Orissa, facing drought conditions since 1965, sees an annual mass migration of farmers to other States in search of work. SURESH GOHIR of Bhotapada village in the backward Bolangir district of Orissa consumed pesticide two years ago after his paddy crop failed. He survived the suicide attempt but found life doubly difficult as debt had mounted. Suresh was forced to migrate to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in search of...
More »India Tries Using Cash Bonuses to Slow Birthrates by Jim Yardley
Sunita Laxman Jadhav is a door-to-door saleswoman who sells waiting. She sweeps along muddy village lanes in her nurse’s white sari, calling on newly married couples with an unblushing proposition: Wait two years before getting pregnant, and the government will thank you. It also will pay you. “I want to tell you about our honeymoon package,” began Ms. Jadhav, an auxiliary nurse, during a recent house call on a new bride in...
More »Govt, UNDP aim to make job scheme effective by Ruhi Tewari
The government is collaborating with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to ensure that India’s flagship welfare programme leads to a tangible improvement in the human development index among the scheme’s beneficiaries. UNDP and the Union government have launched a pilot project aimed at making the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) more efficient and effective by coordinating it with other development programmes. “The idea is to leverage this massive...
More »Oliver Twist seeks food security by P Sainath
The NREGS is restricted. The PDS is targeted. Only exploitation is universal. The rotting of lakhs of tonnes of foodgrain in open yards, while shocking, is hardly new or surprising. Remember the rural poor marching on godowns in Andhra Pradesh in 2001 in similar circumstances? The Supreme Court was quite right in jolting the Union government. “In a country where admittedly people are starving, it is a crime to waste even...
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