The National Advisory Council is back with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at its head, promising to give a strong fillip to the UPA government's social sector agenda that is at the heart of the party's political strategy to consolidate its 'aam admi' base. The revival of the NAC, that had folded up following Sonia's resignation after the office-of-profit controversy, has been on the cards since the Supreme Court gave its...

Academics can have relevance beyond the printed word and Jean Dreze has proved that this is indeed the case. He has deservedly won the Economic Times’ Policy Change Agent of the Year 2009 for his outstanding work in poverty alleviation and rural employment. A development economist, Dreze has taken his academic persuasions to the real world — he not only played a major role in designing the National Rural Employment...

Close on the heels of Congress president Sonia Gandhi exhorting party members to act as “guardians of NREGA” in the August edition of party mouthpiece Congress Sandesh, Rural Development Minister C P Joshi has packed the apex body monitoring the implementation of UPA government’s flagship National Rural Job Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) with his partymen, edging out the original architects of the scheme. The Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC), the apex...

The distribution of iron fortified rice is part of the Government of India's push to combat anaemia and it will become a near mandatory programme for the poor, for whom this rice will be inescapable i.e., PDS, ICDS, school meals, etc.  The fact-finding visit was organised by Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA-Kisan Swaraj) and the Right To Food Campaign (RTFC) between June 13th to 15th 2022, and included a...

KEY TRENDS  •    A survey study by CRY across 71 districts in 13 states during September-October 2012 to assess the implementation of RTE reveals that: a. 11% schools did not have toilets; b. Only 18% schools had separate toilets for girls; c. In 34% schools toilets were observed to be in bad condition or unusable; d. 20% schools did not have safe drinking water; e. 12% schools had a tap, or...