-Live Mint Rural livelihoods have improved because of MGNREGA. It is wrong to say the scheme has not worked If some recent news articles are to be believed, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a scheme that costs less than 0.35% of India's gross domestic product (GDP), has crashed the country's economy. The latest to join this bandwagon of criticism is an editorial in Mint. ("MGNREGA: A tale...

-PTI NEW DELHI: With proceedings in parliament remaining disrupted, the government was unable to introduce the street vendors bill - a pet legislation of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi - in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday when opposition MPs objected to introducing bills in the din. The upper house, which witnessed repeated adjournments, met at 2pm still amid din when Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Girija Vyas sought the permission of...

-PTI Good monsoon improves prospects of better foodgrain production this year Nagpur: Foodgrain prouction is likely to touch a record 263.2 million tonnes (mt) this year, beating the previous high of 259 mt achieved two years ago, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said today. "The country is likely to achieve record 263.2 mt foodgrain production this year. This would be about 4 mt higher than the record of 259 million tonnes achieved two years...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Central Information Commission on Monday finally set the ball rolling on action against the six national political parties for violating its directions and not appointing public information officers in the last eight months. The commission issued notices to Congress, BJP, CPM, NCP, BSP and CPI for failing to comply to its June 3, 2013 order that recognized political parties as public authorities. The transparency watchdog...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With every passing day, the current parliamentary session - which is the last one before the Lok Sabha election - seems less and less likely to pass the six corruption-related Bills promised by Rahul Gandhi. In a bid to salvage the situation, Aruna Roy's group has zeroed in two of those six Bills, saying that they were "non-controversial" and "necessary complements" to the much touted...