-Business World In the run up to Independence Day, Professor Ashok Gulati wrote a scathing critique of what he has described as “elitist biases in public policy”, that ignore the reality of the masses in rural areas. The reality he describes is that of low rates of growth in agriculture; a sector that majority of Indians still depend on.  He lamented the excessive preponderance of economic policy discourse in the country...

-Livemint.com MGNREGS work days increased to 150 from 100; Rs.5,142 cr rurban project to create 300 smart village clusters New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Wednesday unveiled a package of measures to combat rural distress in the backdrop of a below-average monsoon rainfall. The Union cabinet decided to increase the number of days of employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) from the existing 100...

-National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) Press Release New Delhi, 18 September 2015: With work and social protection emerging as a major focus area, an awareness-cum-multi stake holder dialogue programme for workers of unorganized sectors was jointly conducted by NIDAN and National Union of Informal workers (NUIW) here on Friday. Speaking at the inaugural session of the one-day colloquium on National Workshop of Informal Workers; Laws, Policies & Organizing for...

-The Indian Express Under the plan, the state governments will identify the clusters in accordance with the framework for implementation prepared by the Ministry of Rural Development. In a bid to transform rural areas to economically, socially and physically sustainable spaces, the Cabinet Wednesday approved the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (SPMRM) with an outlay of Rs 5,142.08 crore to set up 300 rural clusters across the country by 2019-20. “The mission...

-The Indian Express It requires a far wider spectrum of interventions than mere clinical management. The latest edition of the Global Nutrition Report 2015 by the International Food Policy Research Institute, released on Tuesday, brings back the concerns over malnutrition into sharp focus. In July, the government of India, after much avoidable controversy, released malnutrition (used synonymously as undernutrition) figures from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC) data that was collected...