For Sonia Gandhi, the change could not have been more dramatic. Just last year, her contribution in pushing for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was hailed as the single largest reason for the fresh mandate received by a government avowedly dedicated to the aam aadmi. Yet, last week, Gandhi, as chairperson of the National Advisory Council (NAC) was reduced to lodging a complaint with Prime Minister...

The city is teeming with guests. They are migrant workers from neighbouring states who are in the city for work, for better income, for better living conditions and for everything else that makes the city attractive. They are mostly employed in the unorganised sector, as vendors, Contract Workers at construction sites, rickshaw-pullers or domestic workers. The city does not seem to care for them. They stumble around learning the ways of...

Can we afford to leave MG-NREGA alone? Why is the civil society crying foul? Are the rural activists demanding too much? Is the UPA-II trying to take back what UPA-I gave before the elections? Let us face it, the MG-NREGA is in a big crisis. NAC members like Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze have alleged (See links below) that the present remuneration of rural workers is declining by the day and it...

Striking workers at Foxconn India in Sriperumbudur near Chennai take on the corporate giant, demanding better wages. WORKERS at Foxconn-India in Sriperumbudur in Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu, have been on strike from September 24 demanding better wages. They also want the reinstatement of 24 suspended colleagues and the withdrawal of an eight-day wage cut slapped on some workers. That they have held out for so long is remarkable, not least...

Two months after Uttar Pradesh government launched a campaign to give incentives for the scheme of giving 100-day employment to 10 lakh marginalised families under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), it has become a bone of contention between the Centre and the state government. Under the initiative, the state had decided to appoint a nodal agency, identify civil society organisations and give them incentives for ensuring 80 to...