-Livemint.com Delays in payment and indifferent implementation, among other reasons, have blunted the programme’s effectiveness Procedural lapses have marred the implementation of the state-funded job guarantee programme aimed at alleviating rural distress in India, according to a review of the scheme in eight states by the rural development ministry. While delays in disbursal of funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) have held up wage payments in Madhya...

-The Indian Express Between 2005 and 2012, structural changes drove poverty reduction — non-agricultural incomes rose the fastest, and the largest shifts from farm to salaried non-farm employment were seen among the poorest. The significant shift from farm work to non-farm sources of income accelerated the decline in poverty in India. Non-farm jobs pay more than agricultural labour, and incomes from both were propelled by a steep rise in wages for rural...

-The Hindu A better approach to man-wildlife conflict management requires an integration of scientific evidence, animal behaviour, and landscape and socio-economic context The difference of views on the killing of wild animals between a former and a sitting Environment Minister of the ruling party — one in favour, the other against — has hit the front pages. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change recently permitted three States, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and...

-NDTV Gumla (Jharkhand): For a public hearing on the National Food Security Act in Jharkhand’s Gumla district, conducted by activists in the presence of government officials, 75-year-old Jasmati Lohrain walked over four kilometres in the searing heat. The hearing, attended by over 500 villagers in Gumla’s Bharno block, was her only chance to get government officials to hear about her problems. Ms Lohrain is a widow; her four sons died in a...

Although public goods are meant for everyone to enable living life with human dignity, certain groups are systematically deprived to access them, says a new report from the Centre for Equity Studies -- a NGO based in Delhi. Put differently, not all sections of the society are able to access or enjoy public goods and services on an equal footing, despite social justice being one of the key provisions of...