-The Indian Express Given their advanced age, navigating different government offices is a struggle for most. Having sat on protest outside Shahid Smarak in Jaipur for 22 days in June along with hundreds of others and trying to prove to the Rajasthan government that they are alive, Hanja Devi, 83, arrived in the national capital on Friday. Her demand remains the same — that the state government listen to them and revive...

-The Times of India Jaipur: They were meant to ease processes and clean up corruption in distributing food grain to the poor. Instead, the e-Point of Sale (PoS) machines have thrown up more problems than solutions. Each of these devices costs roughly Rs 17,000. They are programmed to read fingerprints of those registered to receive subsidized grain, connect to the Aadhaar database over the Internet and authenticate the recipient. Clearly, things aren't playing...

-The Economic Times PUNE: The Maharashtra Cabinet has given in-principle approval to farmers to sell fruits and vegetables directly to wholesalers, bypassing the APMC mandis. However, it has held back the decision by a few days, handing it over to a cabinet sub-committee. "A cabinet sub-committee will take a decision on the matter in four days. We want to examine different angles such as the risk involved in farmers getting payment when...

-The Hindu Confining it to just the Ministry of Rural Development would be the most retrograde step in democratic decentralisation in over a quarter century. If, as The Hindu’s exclusive on Wednesday indicates, Prime Minister Narendra Modi were to close down the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, it would confirm one’s worst fears about his government’s hypocritical approach to grass-roots democracy for grass-roots development. This was a lacuna that was evident in the ‘Gujarat...

Two back-to-back reports that shed light on the status of MGNREGA implementation in the country, have been released recently from the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). A review of MGNREGA implementation in 8 different states of India by a team of experts during the month of May this year reveals that in many of the drought affected districts, the Gram Panchayats have no work to offer under the programme. (Please click...