-Frontline The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...
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MgNREGA Works and Their Impacts: A Study of Maharashtra -Krushna Ranaware, Upasak Das, Ashwini Kulkarni, and Sudha Narayanan
-Economic and Political Weekly This study reports on a survey of 4,881 users of more than 4,100 works created under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Maharashtra. It provides evidence that MgNREGA works support agriculture, and benefit a large number of small and marginal farmers. An overwhelming 90% of the respondents considered the works very useful or somewhat useful, while only 8% felt they were useless. Further, most...
More »Vasundhara Raje turns to MgNREGA as hailstorms cause devastation of crops across 26 districts -Akshay Deshmane
-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who had demanded scrapping of the MgNREGA last year, has now turned to the same law for helping her tide over a crisis. With hailstorms causing massive devastation of crops in 26 of the total 33 districts in early March - and Congress president Sonia Gandhi coming down to join protests against the state administration - among the multiple relief packages...
More »Unique identity dilemma -Jean Dreze
-The Indian Express It is easy to see why the Unique Identity (UID) project, also known as Aadhaar, has caught the imagination of many administrators, economists and policymakers. Identity verification is a routine problem in India and Aadhaar sounds like a foolproof solution. The idea is really smart and the technology is cutting-edge. After the initial hurdle of universal enrolment, numerous applications are possible: monitoring the attendance of government employees, linking...
More »Building on Aadhaar -Bibek Debroy
-The Indian Express As of the first half of March, 786 million of those who are 18 and older have got Aadhaar numbers. The largest absolute numbers are in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. There are two broad channels for Aadhaar enrolment - the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) itself and the Registrar General of India (RGI). For instance, in Lakshadweep, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal,...
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