-The Hindu A well recharge pit was also dug for harvesting the rains Appiyampatti, a small hamlet in Dindugal district of Tamil Nadu, is one among the several villages in the state which has been facing a severe drought for the past over five years. Even during such a critical phase when several farmers left farming and started moving out in search of alternative work Mr. V.Chellamutu remained anchored in the village to...

-The Indian Express We want Prime Minister Narendra Modi to succeed in his national campaign to tackle the vast problems of the poor in Bharat. But his one-time contractor turned Union minister for rural development is succeeding in making his own prime minister look contradictory and indecisive to the nation and the world. The prime minister talks about constructing toilets and improving sanitation, opening bank accounts for every poor, excluded family,...

-The Financial Express The proposed MGNREGA changes can help plug the leakages and enhance agriculture productivity There is good news about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) scheme. Recent press reports reveal that the rural development minister, Nitin Gadkari, has instructed lowering of the mandatory share for unskilled wages in total expenditure from the current 60% to 51%. He has also directed, quite rightly, that 50% of the expenditure be...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today said "heads should roll" because the Ganga has remained polluted even after 30 years and Rs 20,000 crore of clean-up efforts and hinted it might order the closure of industrial units pumping Waste into the sacred river. "You can't shift the city but at least you can shift the factories," a three-judge bench said in a terse warning to over 700 such units as...

-The Indian Express Moves to dilute labour-material ratio in MGNREGA and focus exclusively on select backward blocks will adversely impact rural poor. Before the general elections, free-market fundamentalists had lobbied fiercely to reshape so-called Wasteful social-sector expenditures. Primary among their targets was the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which, according to them, should become an unconditional cash transfer scheme. Post-elections, the late Gopinath Munde's espousal of the MGNREGA went...