Rural Development Minister CP Joshi has refused to move on a proposal by the Planning Commission to link wages under the national job guarantee scheme to the consumer price index. In fact, the Plan panel’s proposal was echoed by the National Advisory Council chaired by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.In a presentation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently, the Planning Commission made a strong case for aligning the wage levels to...
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In Orissa’s poorest villages, questions over money spent on ‘jobs never given’ by Debabrata Mohanty
Last fortnight, the Supreme Court agreed allegations of misappropriation of NREGS funds in Orissa are not without basis. Debabrata Mohanty tracks the scheme and the controversy it is in: FACT HUNT In May-June 2007, the Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS) surveyed how an MGNREGS programme was being carried out in the 100 poorest villages of Orissa’s “hunger bowl” of KBK (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) districts, as well as the districts of Nuapada, Nabarangpur...
More »2010: Watershed year for Indian agriculture
In more ways than one the calendar year 2010 would go down the memory lane as a watershed year for the food and agriculture front in the country which recorded unprecedented growth rate of 4.4 per cent in July-September quarter but by December unprecedented price hike of essential food items especially left consumers in tears. As the year comes to an end, an embattled government and the Union agriculture ministry stood...
More »Former SC judge demands probe into assets of ex-CJI's son-in-law
Barely weeks after firefighting the controversy over a central minister trying to influence an HC judge, former chief justice of India K G Balakrishnan has come under the spotlight again. Demands have emerged from several quarters for a probe into the assets of Balakrishnan's son-in-law, P V Sreenijan, an advocate and a leader of the Youth Congress in Kerala. The move comes in the wake of reports claiming a "baffling increase"...
More »Of luxury cars and lowly tractors by P Sainath
Even as the media celebrate the Mercedes Benz deal in the Marathwada region as a sign of “rural resurgence,” the latest data show that 17,368 farmers killed themselves in the year of the “resurgence.” When businessmen from Aurangabad in the backward Marathwada region bought 150 Mercedes Benz luxury cars worth Rs. 65 crore at one go in October, it grabbed media attention. The top public sector bank, State Bank of India,...
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