-PTI The United Nations Population Fund will participate in women empowerment schemes in Madhya Pradesh, fund's country head Fredrica Major has said. Terming them as wonderful, Major lauded the women welfare programmes being conducted in the state, during a meeting with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan here last evening, an official release said today. Chouhan informed her about the 'Beti Bachao Abhiyan' (save the girl child campaign) and various women empowerment schemes going...

-The Hindu In a far-reaching decision, the Rajasthan government has announced that a person below 18 years will be considered as a child labourer if he or she is employed. Accepting the long-pending demand of child rights groups, the government announced a comprehensive standard operating procedure (SOP) for identification, rescue, protection and rehabilitation of children employed in various occupations. The decision has come as a major triumph for advocacy groups seeking the abolition...

Two sets of government data on UPA government's most famous flagship programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), for which Rs. 33000 crore was earmarked in 2012-13 budget, provide widely different figures for several states, a feature which experts say is indicative of the corruption in the scheme and weakness of social audit or accountability. The government has increasingly relied on Management Information System (MIS) for monitoring NREGA at...

-Outlook Why free mobiles to BPL folks is a bad idea  “Here you don’t have money to provide them food, and you are thinking of giving them phones,” scoffs a minister in the UPA government, obviously off the record. His comment mirrors the general negative reaction to the ‘Har Haath Mein Phone’ scheme mooted by the Planning Commission, which aims to provide a free mobile phone to each below the poverty line...

-The Times of India In what could turn out to be its calling card for the 2014 general elections, the government is finalizing a Rs 7,000 crore scheme to give one mobile phone to every family living below the poverty line. Sources in the PMO said the scheme—Har Hath Mein Phone—expected to be announced by PM Manmohan Singh on August 15, will not only aim to give away mobiles to around six...