-The Economic Times   NEW DELHI: The rural development ministry wants states to raise a cadre of so-called barefoot engineers to boost the effectiveness of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by helping to speed up wage payments that are getting delayed by as much as three months because there aren't enough employees to monitor the work being done under the jobs programme. The ministry wants to rope in those...

-Down to Earth   All safe motherhood programmes of the government are focused on institutional deliveries, but health centres are in disarray. Experts suggest ways to reduce deaths during delivery Lal Mohan, a daily wage labourer, has no clue what took his wife's life. Sarita Devi, 25, was expecting her third child, and was on way to a good hospital at Bhagalpur district in Bihar. "She was normal all through the nine months...

-Human Rights Watch New Delhi: School authorities in India persistently discriminate against children from marginalized communities, denying them their right to education, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Four years after an ambitious education law went into effect in India guaranteeing free schooling to every child ages 6 to 14, almost every child is enrolled, yet nearly half are likely to drop out before completing their elementary education. The...

-The Financial Express   Even in the BJP's Chhattisgarh, the costs of running the PDS outweigh the benefits-Aadhaar is the obvious answer   The first nail in Aadhaar's coffin, it has to be said, was driven in by none other than Nandan Nilekani. The day the father of the UIDAI's Aadhaar decided not to be a technocrat anymore, and chose to become a Congressman, he gave Aadhaar a distinct political flavour. It was now...

-The Hindu Business Line Welfare programmes do work these days. That's because their implementation determines poll outcomes In the last 15 years, India has seen the adoption of an "alphabet soup" of ambitious national anti-poverty programmes: a rural connectivity scheme (PMGSY), a universal primary schooling initiative (SSA), a rural health initiative (NRHM), a rural electrification scheme (RGGVY), a rural employment guarantee (NREGA), a food subsidy (Food Security Act), and a new digital...