-The Guardian After a decade of success, the landmark scheme is being starved of money by a central government seemingly intent on reining in rural wage growth Ten years ago this week, the Indian parliament unanimously passed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). It was a historic legislation based on two interlinked goals: ensuring livelihood security to rural residents by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment...

-Financial Chronicle From the inner recesses of Chattisgarh to the upper crevices of Sikkim, a look at how MGNREGA initiatives are changing lives The large blackboard outside the police station reads like a rate list. There are different monetary awards for Naxalites' surrender with different weaponry, the highest, Rs 4.5 lakh, for surrender with a light machine gun, Rs 3 lakh with an AK 47, and only Rs 30,000 with a 12...

-The Financial Express   With the High Level Committee (HLC) on restructuring FCI pointing to a 47% leakage in the 55 million tonnes of grain distributed through ration shops, the only viable solution is to shut down the PDS as the HLC has recommended be done over a period of time. Not surprisingly, many have argued that, in states that have restructured their ration shop operations-such as Chhattisgarh-there has been a dramatic...

-Down to Earth Lack of credible data and co-ordinated action slow country's efforts to contain malnutrition Even though India's programmes for nutrition in children were carried out to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals, the Global Health Report-2014 shows that their health has not improved substantially. While 46 per cent of under-5 children were stunted in 1997,the figure rose to 48 per cent in 2006. Reduction in stunting from 1990 to 2011 was...

-The Hindu Why do we not have a clear answer on just how much grain is leaking out of the Public Distribution System? If you're interested in just what ‘leakage' MEAns and how it's worked out, here's a little primer. So first: what is leakage? Since we know anecdotally that many households do not get all the grain they are entitled to, we can assume some is being illegally diverted. It's...