Revised MGNREGS guidelines to be finalised end of this week The revised guidelines for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is likely shift the social welfare programme's thrust from being labour-intensive to material intensive. This was indicated by the Union minister for rural development, Jairam Ramesh, on November 14 at a day-long seminar on the UPA government's flagship programme. At the consultations titled, Empowering Lives through MGREGA: Strengthening...

How do you quantify happiness in a diverse nation like ours? Growth levels, value-based structural changes, what can affect it? Life is Elsewhere?     Bhutan’s GNH: Based on the Buddhist doctrine of harmony with environment and fellow beings besides material comfort     UNDP Human Development Report: Ranks nations on quality of life—adjusted real income, life expectancy, education etc     World Values Survey: Started in 1995, it explores impact of social and political changes...

Health is a state of mental, social and physical well-being and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity. To achieve this noble objective, India requires health care professionals who are trained in institutions with standardised infrastructure, and the availability of accessible and equitable health care for both the rural and urban populace. Recently, the health sector has been in the news — from the creation of a rural based...

-The Times of India   Activist Aruna Roy-led National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) has opposed the government's grievance redressal bill saying it was "seriously compromised" and would be ineffective in providing weaker sections of society with any relief in its present form. NCPRI's stinging critique of the bill is significant because Roy is an influential member of the National Advisory Council that functions under UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. The government...

Civil society groups on Tuesday came out strongly against the Centre’s draft National Food Security Bill, which has not incorporated the National Advisory Council’s suggestion for providing maternity entitlements to about 15 crore women in the informal (non-Government) sector, as in the Central Government, thereby denying food security (breast feeding) to infants.  Similarly, the current legal guarantee of 'hot cooked meals' for children attending anganwadis has been diluted by providing the...