-The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the persistent digital divide afflicting rural India owing to poor and insufficient internet connectivity. With the Prime Minister’s Independence Day speech acknowledging the need ‘to complete’ internet connectivity to villages, there is a renewed vigour and interest in the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN)/BharatNet project. An important question to pose when translating policy to project is: when should...
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MGNREGA: Today and tomorrow -Sunita Narain
-Down to Earth The programme can provide a safety net for the poor, not just in COVID-19 times, but for times to come In these darkest days of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) — when jobs and economies have collapsed — 56 million households got work in the past three months and these jobs provided relief. This was under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which perhaps is the...
More »Government compromises on Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy (2014) and RTI Act to push forward mining reforms, allege civil society activists
--Press release by Mineral Inheritors Rights Association (MIRA) dated 27th August, 2020 The Ministry of Mines has put up a notice on 24th August, 2020 seeking public comments on substantial matters of reform of mineral laws, rules and regulations within a period of 10 days, i.e. 3rd September, 2020. The state governments have not yet been consulted and a 10-day period for the states to respond undermines the federal spirit of...
More »Explained: How marriage age and women’s health are linked -Nushaiba Iqbal
-The Indian Express PM Narendra Modi has announced a panel to fight malnutrition in young women and ensure they get married at the right age. A look at how the two are linked During his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “We have formed a committee to ensure that the daughters are no longer suffering from malnutrition and they are married off at the right age. As soon as the...
More »At Janta Parliament, parties call for CMP to forge Oppn unity
-The Indian Express CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury suggested that a CMP-like draft should be prepared, based on which unity should be forged between parties and people’s movements, the collective said in a statement. Leaders from various opposition parties voiced the need for a common minimum programme (CMP) to bring the Opposition together. They were speaking on the last day of the week-long Janta Parliament, organised by Jan Sarokar, a collective of...
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