(Application deadline Friday September 30, 2011) Inclusive Media for Change, a CSDS-based initiative that runs a clearing house of ideas, information and alternatives on India’s rural crises (www.im4change.org), invites applications for media fellowships for journalists in English and Hindi for 2011. The ideal candidates would be willing to spend two to three weeks with rural communities and write series of stories or make radio/ TV programmes on grassroots issues that require...

The Centre’s flagship welfare plan has failed to turn the tide on a key problem: rural MIgration. The disconcerting admission about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MNREGA, came in a paper released today by Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on the main challenges facing the programme and the reforms required. Checking distress MIgration is a key objective of the scheme, other than providing at least 100 days...

Ankaji Bhai Gangar, a 49-year-old subsistence farmer, stood in line in this remote village until, for the first time in his life, he squinted into the soft glow of a computer screen. His name, year of birth and address were recorded. A worker guided Mr. Gangar’s rough fingers to the glowing green surface of a scanner to record his fingerprints. He peered into an iris scanner shaped like binoculars that...

The government will recast the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, to give it a welfare edge, following criticism that it was disconnected from people's concern over corruption, high food prices and inflation. The attempt will be to make it more responsive to people's needs and increase earnings of the rural poor. The reform attempts to make the scheme truly demand-based, besides addressing issues of fraud, misuse of funds, corruption...

The rural development ministry has proposed several changes in the rural job guarantee programme to ensure timely payment of wages and eradicate graft at a time when the Congress party-led ruling alliance has come under fire for poor governance and its failure to tackle corruption. The ministry has listed nine challenges to the proper functioning of the programme and proposed possible modifications in a note. The challenges include ensuring demand-driven legal...