-The Asian Age Ahead of the Union Budget, senior ministers of the UPA appear to be petitioning Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with claims and counter-claims over the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MNREGA).   After finance minister P. Chidambaram apparently tried to impress upon the Prime Minister for cut in MNREGA budget, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, in a letter to Dr Singh, has rebutted his colleague’s perception about...

-New Indian Express Bhubaneswar: The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) has expressed deep concern over the issue of migration of tribals to states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu due to poor implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Programme in Odisha. The number of tribal beneficiaries of MGNREGA in the State has reduced by half in 2011-12 in comparison to that of 2010-11. As a result, tribals from...

-PTI   The government needs to do a lot to create new jobs, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Thursday adding the NSSO data does not necessarily reveal "what exactly is happening". "It is not sufficient to reach to any conclusion about the workforce scenario. I don't believe that we can come to an unambiguous conclusion on the basis of NSSO data that what exactly is happening", he said addressing...

-Live Mint The project is part of the country’s ambitious cash-transfer plan for selected welfare programmes Bangalore: Karnataka will start transferring cash directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries of India’s rural job guarantee scheme on a pilot basis in seven districts later this year, the state government said. This is part of the country’s ambitious cash-transfer plan for selected welfare programmes that the central government wants to eventually adopt across the...

-Live Mint Ministry wants UIDAI to be held liable for fake transactions, but the latter says that’s outside its mandate The transformation of India’s subsidy system to one in which cash is paid directly to the intended beneficiary is faced with a situation in which none of the various government agencies involved is willing to assume responsibility in cases of fraud, according to two people familiar with the development. The programme, the pilot...