-The Telegraph The National Democratic Alliance government is planning to scrap the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The chief minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, had already asked for the employment programme of the MGNREGA under which the state was obliged to provide employment on demand (failing which an unemployment allowance of a specified amount had to be paid), to be downgraded to a mere "food-for-work" programme, where the state...

-The Hindu Business Line They drop out on account of cultural taboos and lack of follow up efforts by implementing agencies Despite opportunities and systematic community-driven handholding support from the Government and non-government bodies, women might still choose not to participate in the economic development process. Under the purview of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, the world's largest poverty alleviation initiative, the Government and NGOs are targeting women from the poorest households...

-GRIST Media If hard work and enterprise inevitably made you prosperous, every rural woman would be a millionaire. These women have borne the brunt of the radical, often brutal transformation of rural India these past two decades. Our writers examine the hardships they continue to face as well as their remarkable vision to solve some of the greatest problems of our times such as food security, environmental justice and developing a...

-FirstPost.com What compelled a group of leading economists from India and abroad to shoot a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the government's job scheme - the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA? Is it to speak out against the government's desperation to throttle the scheme or did the economists sense any ulterior motive behind the government's move? A section of prominent Indian economists working out of the country or...

-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...