-The Indian Express We have turned our back to the intense food and drinking water distress across states India has transformed spectacularly in innumerable ways in the last two decades. One of the least noted changes is in the way the country — governments, the press and people — respond to drought and food scarcities. Back in the late-1980s, many states across India were reeling under back-to-back droughts for three consecutive years, not...

-Livemint.com Academic assessment of the scheme appears far more favourable than evident from the public discourse Ten years after it was launched, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which promises 100 days of employment to every rural household, is back in the news. More people in rural India are seeking employment through the programme across the country, with job numbers scaling a five-year peak. Although the MGNREGS seems to be...

-The Hindu Nauroti Devi, who never went to a school, uses a computer for village administration. VISAKHAPATNAM: Nauroti would hardly draw any attention from a passerby except maybe her traditional pallu over the head might draw a curious stare in South India. A Dalit who never went to school, after being elected sarpanch of Harmada village in Kishangarh Tehsil in Ajmer district of Rajasthan, she trained the government employee panchayat secretary on how...

-The Indian Express Lack of adequate staff, payment delays undermine MGNREGA in a drought-hit district The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has completed 10 years and the NDA government recently claimed that its rule has resulted in a “transformation” in the implementation of the scheme. The veracity of the claim is highly questionable as we observe a wide lacuna in its implementation in several places. Here, we focus...

-NDTV NREGA, today celebrating its 10th anniversary, has received a hostile reception from the current political dispensation. The Rajasthan Chief Minister questioning the need for a law, the then Rural Development minister's suggestion to limit NREGA to a few districts, and the Prime Minister's speech in Parliament in 2015 reveal the BJP's hostility and double standards (NREGA was passed unanimously in 2005). Yet, it would be wrong to lay the entire blame...