After firefighting the controversy over poverty line cut-off, the Congress-led UPA government may find itself in trouble on the matter of NREGS wages. In a judgment late last month, the Karnataka High Court ruled that wages under the UPA’s flagship rural job guarantee scheme “shall not be” less than the minimum wages fixed by state governments under the Minimum Wages (MW) Act. The decision will re-open the tussle between Sonia Gandhi-led National...

-India Today   Terming the implementation of UPA's flagship programme MNREGA as "patchy", Rural Development MinisterJairam Rameshon Monday expressed concern at leakage of funds meant for the scheme but hoped that the proposed 'NREGA 2.0' will deal with the problems in the coming times. "There are serious, serious shortcomings in its implementation...The record of its implementation is very patchy...and therefore, we have a huge challenge," Ramesh said at a programme here. He said while...

The state's rice bowl is left empty An unviable minimum support price (MSP) for rice has forced farmers in Andhra Pradesh to leave their lands fallow. The movement is spreading to other states. “Farming never pays” is a familiar slogan among agriculturists across the world, and especially so in India. Nevertheless, many continue to cultivate their fields year after year, barely eking out an existence, toiling in the hope that the tide...

The Jharkhand state MGNREGA council has increased the honorarium to nearly 6,000 contract employees working for implementation of the central scheme, putting an additional burden of over Rs 1 crore on the state exchequer. However, the government said the extra load would be borne by the central share of funds. The proposal of the rural development department was approved by the state council in its third meeting here on Tuesday. The...

Media Reports The UID Aadhaar project planning and system design shortcomings and security risks at the national (or macro) level have been discussed elsewhere.1 The present article views the Aadhaar project at the system operational level, with practical considerations based on observed and probable functioning at the service delivery end. Consider the following report in a local daily, The Mysore Bugle: Food riots: PDS outlet vandalised Mysore: August 2, 2015—The PDS outlet in Ashokpuram...