Until two years ago, Vimla had never even considered stepping out of her house for work. Women in her part of the world didn’t work. Now, she doesn’t just work, but also operates a bank account, participates in household decisions, and is learning two of the Rs (reading and writing). The difference is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that was launched in Vimla’s village in 2008....
More »SEARCH RESULT
SC upholds constitutional validity of MPLAD scheme
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) saying it was for public purpose. The bench said that improvement can be made in the working of the MPLAD scheme, but it is not illegal. Under MPLAD scheme, members of Parliament are allocated Rs two crore annually for development of their constituencies. "We hold that the MPLAD scheme is valid,"...
More »Hazard from waste
The recent high-profile cobalt radiation exposure case in Delhi is a warning signal for bigger disasters waiting to happen. While the reported incident is not commonplace, India is home to a large and rapidly growing inventory of hazardous waste. Much of this is handled by the poor in an extremely crude manner without observing any safety norms. Part of this hazardous waste is even dumped in landfill sites where many...
More »Parental guidance by Abhijit Banerjee
A couple of years ago a colleague came into my office with what he thought was a definite typographic error: “It says that India won only three medals in the Olympics; that cannot be right — there is a billion people in India.” I had to break it to him that this was actually the most medals India ever won in a single Olympic game. India has an average of...
More »No Water under the bridge here by P Sainath
Many projects for supplying Water in Vidarbha remain on paper, though the money allotted is very real. Sarada Badre and her daughters have stopped their bi-weekly 20-km walking trips. That was their routine for a while. “The orange trees have withered and there's no Water anyway,” says Saradabai at her home in Sirasgaon village in Amravati district. In theory, Watering their 214 orange trees shouldn't be too hard. Though the nearby...
More »