-The Indian Express Destruction of her murals shows the rot in the museum. The mindless destruction of Ganga Devi’s extraordinary last works at the Crafts Museum is terribly sad. It highlights the caste system between art and craft, the indifference to the creative integrity of a craftsperson’s vision. The quoted reaction of a Crafts Museum official, “Don’t worry, I’ll get another kohbar ghar painted” shows that, even for someone who claims...

Two recent reports show that this social sector scheme has had a causal impact in improving lives, especially for women and children Fourteen million people escaped falling into poverty under the world’s largest anti-poverty programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In 10 years of its existence, the scheme reduced poverty by 32 per cent. Recent data also shows that more women are drawing cash incomes, more children...

-Business Standard Mobile commerce venture AgroStar supplies seeds and fertiliser to farmers. As the company expands, delivery will be a challenge Navinbhai Karsanbhai Patel, a farmer from Navanagar in Gujarat, used to have a hard time securing quality inputs for his four-acre farm. That was before he got to know about AgroStar's offerings. His association with the company, now 18 months old, has resulted in 300 missed calls to the helpline number...

Although MGNREGA has been looked upon with suspicion by the Government, industry as well as the landed farming class for various reasons including inefficiency, leakages, corruption, rise in rural wages, cost escalation etc., a new report reveals that the programme reduced poverty among its participants between 2004-05 and 2011-12 by providing employment. The report entitled Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: A Catalyst for Rural Transformation has estimated that...

-The Hindu Employment in villages is largely in agriculture sector, while industrial employment is less than four per cent. The Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE) has advocated transformation and development of “smart villages” across the country to improve standard of living in the rural areas and boost the rural economy. Development of rural India holds the key to the nation’s sustainable economic growth, it said. SCOPE Director-General U.D. Choubey told The Hindu...