The finance ministry is putting shape to a new social security scheme for unorganized sector workers, creating for the first time a safety net for millions of underpaid and overworked people, many of whom living in abject poverty.  The ministry has discussed with the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and the four state run non-life insurance companies the contours of this scheme that will provide life insurance, health cover and retirement pension...

At BANCON (annual bankers' conference) 2011 in Chennai, financial institutions explored avenues for greater participation in agriculture and rural development. There are a few areas in need of additional attention and investment. Green Revolution technologies are scale-neutral but not resource-neutral. Inputs are needed for output; therefore market-purchased inputs become important in providing soil and plant healthcare for higher yields. Social scientists point out that small and marginal farmers will be excluded...

-The Hindu Business Line   The Rural Development Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh's proposal to amend the law on minimum wages to permit a lower wage for employment under the rural jobs scheme (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA) makes practical sense. The Karnataka High Court ruled recently that wages set under MGNREGA cannot be independent of the MWA. Effectively, it means there can be no such thing as an...

It has to be but a means to development, not an end in itself Is India doing marvellously well, or is it failing terribly? Depending on whom you speak to, you could pick up either of those answers with some frequency. One story, very popular among a minority but a large enough group—of Indians who are doing very well (and among the media that cater largely to them)—runs something like...

It is time to separate people's real needs from the arbitrary assessments of poverty that have guided Indian governments India's poverty line has always been a matter of huge debate, but it was a discussion mostly confined to economists and policymakers. But the matter has now gone public, following a row about an affidavit from the planning commission to the supreme court of India, in which the official poverty line was...