-Down to Earth Blog MGNREGA has been successful in Madhya Pradesh. Can the scheme also provide solutions for the current drought in the region? Sevanti Bai (45) lives alone in a village in Madhya Pradesh. Her husband died fifteen years ago, owing to health complications. With no land or children to depend on, she fends for herself by engaging in ‘rojgaar guarantee, as the locals call the scheme. MGNREGA, she says, has...

-The Hindu Drought has devastated once-prosperous Latur. In this two-part series Sharad Vyas (text) and Vivek Bendre (photographs) report from the parched district. Latur: The water train chugging into Latur last week captured national attention. But it took the spotlight away from the daily struggle of lakhs of people facing the immediate consequences of extended drought and acute water scarcity in Latur district. The vagaries of nature have already taken their toll:...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The NITI Aayog will draw up schedules for key social sector programmes to counter the criticism that implementation has been slow even two years after the Narendra Modi government took over. The Aayog's Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant made several outcome-based presentations to the Prime Minister last month on sectors such as education, health, rural development and infrastructure. Timelines have been established to achieve progress in areas...

Amidst the prevailing gloominess over agrarian crisis, a recently released report says that the growth rate of agricultural output in both India and China were the same during 2008-2013. The agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) of both these countries on an average grew at 3.3 percent per annum during that period. The latest available data from the 2016 Global Food Policy Report, however, indicates that the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka...

-The Hindu The Aadhaar Bill opens the door to mass surveillance. This danger needs to be seen in the light of recent attacks on the right to dissent. No other country, and certainly no democratic country, has ever held its own citizens hostage to such a powerful infrastructure of surveillance. The Aadhaar project was sold to the public based on the claim that enrolment was “voluntary”. This basically meant that there was...